Schools: Boxing

Viscount Falkland: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will consider placing boxing within the physical education curriculum in schools.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, schools may choose to provide boxing for their pupils if they wish. The latest schools sport survey showed that 15 per cent of all maintained secondary schools do so as part of their PE and sport provision, usually in partnership with local boxing clubs.

Viscount Falkland: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that encouraging and surprising Answer. I say that because there has been, as it were, a cold shouldering of boxing over the years, and not just in education. However, it has proved to be quite useful in leading young people from relatively deprived backgrounds into an activity that is disciplined, encourages fitness and can take them away from a path leading towards criminal activities or drug taking, sad instances of which we see almost daily in our newspapers. Will the noble Lord encourage others in the Government to support boxing as an option?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, my honourable friend the Minister for Sport has given strong encouragement to boxing, but of course it needs to be conducted in a safe environment. We hope that schools would consult closely the Amateur Boxing Association, for example, before they introduced the sport. So far as its benefits are concerned, in preparing for this Question last night, I read Ricky Hatton's memoirs, entitled The Hitman. This is what Ricky has to say about his schooldays:
	"School was a bit of a dead end for me. I never took an exam in my life and I left Hattersley High School with absolutely no qualifications. There was only one subject I liked, PE. In the back of my mind, I always thought I was going to be a boxer".
	The moral I draw from that is that it is another great contribution from my noble friend Lord Hattersley to the youth of this nation. I am sorry to say that the school itself has since closed, but Ricky Hatton makes a great contribution in the Manchester area to sporting opportunities for young people and, indeed, by encouraging them in education.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, I declare an interest as a former trustee of Bolton Lads & Girls Club, where Amir Khan began his amazing boxing career. Amir has recently opened a gym in Bolton in order to put something back into the community. Will the Minister join me in acknowledging and celebrating the role played by individuals such as Amir and the third sector in giving young people the sense of self-worth that comes from sport and outdoor activities?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I strongly endorse what the noble Baroness has said. Young sportsmen such as Amir Khan are great role models for our young people, and we wish Amir all the best as he defends his Commonwealth title next month.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, would my noble friend also consider encouraging schools to ensure that all young women are offered at the age of 12 or 13 the chance to take self-defence classes in the PE curriculum? That is not just to protect themselves against young men who are boxing, but to give them greater self-esteem and capacity for safety on the streets of our cities.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I think that schools should pay close attention to the words of my noble friend in seeing that young women are taught properly how to maintain their own safety. That is an important part of the activity of schools.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord has a very good run at Cheltenham in the next couple of weeks, if his namesake is still running. I am bitterly against boxing for children in case they suffer brain damage. Are all the children involved in boxing in schools given protective headgear?

Lord Adonis: My Lord, the Lord Adonis has been performing disastrously of late. I fear that he is not a role model for anyone at the moment. On safety, my department supports the safe practice guidance developed by the Association for Physical Education as well as the Schools Amateur Boxing Association's standards scheme, which provides national guidance on the safe delivery of boxing activities. In order to reduce the potential for injury, schools keen to offer boxing are advised to consider the Amateur Boxing Association's "Kid Gloves" scheme, or similar schemes, which focus on the development of non-contact boxing skills.

Baroness Golding: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the British Boxing Board of Control. In the past 18 months the number of competitive amateur boxers has doubled to 15,000 and four have already qualified for the Olympic Games. Can yet more money be put in through UK Sport so that we can qualify at all 11 weights when the Games come to London?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend's work. Huge investment is going into sport in schools, both into developing school sport partnerships and into sports facilities. This will be to the benefit of boxing as to other sports.

Lord Addington: My Lords, can the Minister give an assurance that all the other striking martial arts conform to exactly the same safety standards? There seems to be a myth that if something comes from the East and you are kicking as well as punching, it is not as dangerous.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am not sure whether I should answer yes or no to that; I am still trying to think about the noble Lord's question. Perhaps I may look at it carefully and come back to him on it.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, how on earth do you have a non-contact boxing skill?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I think the noble Earl needs to speak to the Amateur Boxing Association.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, is it not true that training for boxing can be non-combative and is one of the most exhilarating and demanding exercises one can undertake?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I take my noble friend's word for it, not having engaged in it myself. In politics, we develop skills which are commensurate in many ways. I am glad to say that they are non-contact too.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, my brother, as a doctor, was the manager of the only ever world champion boxer from Australia. He claimed that this boxer was one of the only ones who retired without brain damage because he was very determined to ensure that. Will the Minister emphasise the point about head protection, particularly for young people? In his answer to my noble friend Lady Trumpington, he was not clear whether the guidance available to schools indicates that there should be head protection.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I should stress that it does. I strongly emphasise the importance of schools paying attention to the safe practice guidance developed by the Association for Physical Education, as well as the Schools Amateur Boxing Association's standards scheme, for precisely the reasons that the noble Baroness and her noble friend set out.

Education: Work Experience

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What steps they will take to ensure that business will provide the necessary opportunities for work experience for students opting to study the new specialist diploma courses.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the vast majority of key stage 4 pupils go on placements each year. Work experience is our single biggest partnership between employers and schools, with an estimated 300,000 businesses already involved. This will provide a strong foundation for work experience in diplomas. Our gateway process for selecting schools and colleges to deliver diplomas ensures strong employer engagement. Colleges also have well-established employer links which will be valuable in providing opportunities for diploma students.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Given that research has shown how important work experience is to student motivation, is it not somewhat worrying that of the 241 consortia so far established to deliver the diploma, fewer than half have associated business partners, and two-thirds report difficulties in finding the statutory 10 days' work placements for their students? Is that not particularly worrying given that these consortia are currently aiming to deal with only 39,000 students, whereas it is hoped ultimately to roll out the diploma to 800,000 students?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the first diplomas do not start until September, so there is time for us to make good the shortfall that the noble Baroness referred to. We are finding strong support from employers for developing more work placements. For example, recently the CBI produced a report called Time Well Spent on embedding employability in work experience and strongly encouraging member companies and organisations to offer work experience placements. There is a whole set of excellent case studies in that document. We are confident that we will get the work experience opportunities needed to launch the diplomas.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, the planned work experience is very short, just 10 days, and may occur with an employer outside the vocational area of the diploma studied. The White Paper on the school-leaving age gives a hypothetical example of a girl who is studying towards a level 2 diploma in engineering doing her work experience in a Jaguar dealership learning about sales. Can the Minister guarantee that work experience will be of sufficient length and relevance to be of value to the student?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, it is important that work experience is balanced against all the other requirements in the curriculum, but 10 days can be an immensely valuable introduction to work for young people. We think that it offers sufficient opportunities for young people to engage in the workplace. As more stay on beyond the age of 16 and we significantly expand apprenticeships, that will be only the beginning of a process of engagement with the workplace that we would like to see all of our young people undertake.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, does the Minister agree that work experience can be enormously motivating? My own step-granddaughter did it here in your Lordships' House and found it tremendously motivating. Does he agree that, if we are to find 800,000 10-day placements, we have to make the health and safety regulations not too frightening and onerous for the employer while at the same time rigorous enough to ensure that the welfare of the child is taken care of?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am delighted to hear about the opportunities the noble Baroness has been providing, although it is not immediately clear to me what work working in your Lordships' House prepares one for in later life—unless one is fortunate enough to be awarded a peerage. Regarding the health and safety issues that she raised, it is vital that health and safety are properly protected and there are regulations to ensure that that takes place. However, we do not wish in any way to discourage employers from offering work experience; frankly, the more the better.

Baroness Coussins: My Lords, will the Government encourage businesses that are offering work experience to students to emphasise how important modern languages are to business, and indeed to the whole economy, in the hope that this might encourage fewer school students to abandon foreign languages after the age of 14?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. Language skills are important and it is good that employers encourage them. I regret to say that surveys show that language skills are not much sought after by employers at large, and I fear that that is one of the reasons why the demand for languages in schools is not as strong as we would wish. But I believe that what the noble Baroness said is right.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, what are the Government doing to ensure that schools are collaborating with FE colleges, as well as employers, to deliver the diplomas?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, there is a great deal more collaboration than in the past. The gateways I mentioned in the original Answer are consortia that bring FE colleges into close association with schools. As the noble Baroness will know because of the debates we had on the then Education and Inspections Bill, we are giving much stronger incentives for schools and further education colleges to work together so that pupils can undertake the courses, including courses that involve time in an FE college, that are best suited to their skills.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, does "business" include agriculture, horticulture and rural crafts? Many in those areas are finding it difficult to find skilled employees, and we need to keep them going in order to keep the rural communities together.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, it absolutely does, for all that the reasons the noble Countess gave.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I wonder if the Minister could answer a question that one of his colleagues was unable to answer in a Question for Short Debate the other day: what are the precise links likely to be between these diplomas and apprenticeships?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I will need to write to the noble Baroness to set out those links precisely because there are different strands for young people to go down. Only in exceptional circumstances would they do a diploma at the same time as an apprenticeship. However, one would hope that the experience gained in recent years as apprenticeships have developed and expanded significantly will be brought to bear in the work-related elements of the diplomas.

Galileo Project

Lord Dykes: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	When they next intend to discuss the Galileo Project with representatives from the new Slovenian presidency of the European Union Council of Ministers.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Transport discussed Galileo with the Slovenian Transport Minister on 30 November, and United Kingdom officials met representatives of the Slovenian presidency on 18 December to discuss their plans for taking the programme forward. At this time, there are no plans for further bilateral discussions.

Lord Dykes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Presumably, the Government must have been extraordinarily relieved at the end of the December European Council that agreement was reached, at long last—after much Sturm und Drang and hefty wrangling—between the member states. Are the Government, subject to their objective of strict discipline on funding, now much more enthusiastic about this scheme? I presume and hope that they are. Does the Minister agree that the scheme will provide enormous job opportunities and economic benefits for this country? It will do so not only through infrastructure contracts when the project starts in a few months' time but through the subsequent business and contracts with clients.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. We achieved our objectives at the important November meeting where Rosie Winterton represented the Government. A cap has been placed on expenditure, and there are immense benefits to the UK economy—not least in the space programme that we share with our European partners. Galileo offers many opportunities for UK business, which we should grab with great enthusiasm.

Lord Eden of Winton: My Lords, what is Galileo going to cost, and why is it necessary?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it is necessary because it provides Europe with an independent satellite system—independent, that is, from our colleagues in America. That necessary independence will provide this country with a much more accurate satellite tracking system. It will provide many more economic opportunities for European and UK investment, and there will be immense long-term benefits for our transportation, security and telecoms industries.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, the Minister did not cover the cost, which the noble Lord asked about. When the Minister answers that, can he give the amount that has been raided from the agricultural budget to meet the cost of this project, against the Government's wishes? Also, bearing in mind that the United States global positioning system, in its refined version, will be ready long before Galileo, what is the point of this project?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the total estimated costs to 2030 are estimated to be something like £7.8 billion. I cannot give a precise figure for the UK contribution, as it is part of a pooled budget. I cannot agree with the noble Lord when he asserts that there has been a raid on the agricultural budget to pay for it. I understand that, although there have been disagreements and discussions about the budgeting process, there now is agreement and that a sensible way forward has been provided.
	Galileo provides Europe with an independent satellite system; that is of immense value and, as I have explained, it provides considerable economic value to the UK economy. It is estimated that there will be benefits to UK business of something like £14 billion by 2025. I argue that we would be foolish to miss out on them.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, did not the Transport Select Committee in another place warn that the costs could actually rise to well over $20 billion? We are talking about vast quantities of real money. Galileo is an entirely political and public project, not a commercial one. Can the Minister reassure us on the important area of whether it will be available for military purposes as well, although it was originally agreed with the Americans that it would be only civilian? Will those military purposes allow full access to bodies such as the Chinese police force in Tibet, or to the Chinese military? Should that not rather temper our relief when we examine this enormous project?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the project is designed primarily as a civil system; it is part of our partnership with our European neighbours. There obviously are concerns about its military use, but it has been defined and agreed as a civil system since its inception. I read some of the thoughts on the subject of the Transport Select Committee. It is of course right to express continued concerns about cost; that is part of its job and remit. We have to ensure that we as government bear down on those costs and work hard with our European colleagues to ensure that they are fully controlled over time, because we want to secure value for money from this important project.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister, like others here, will have relished the opportunity to hear the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, protesting against raiding the common agricultural budget—we shall perhaps come back to that in later debates—but does he agree that some of the arguments that we are hearing from the Conservative Benches were made against British participation in the Airbus project some 20 or 30 years ago? That has been a remarkable success. The arguments for an alternative to dependence on the American GPS—Galileo is a rather more advanced system—are strong strategically and commercially.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, there is very little with which I can disagree in the noble Lord's analysis; his is a very inviting question. The views of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, on agricultural budgets are well known in your Lordships' House.

Lord Peston: My Lords, is not the essence of this Question that the Americans should not have a monopoly on this technology? We must not pussy-foot around this. One of the main advantages of being part of Europe is that it represents a power block that can develop its own technology, of which this project is a good example. I did not know that it was being financed out of the common agricultural budget, but, if it is, that is of outstanding merit.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord puts it very well. It is important that we have that independent commercial opportunity. We obviously work in partnership with our American colleagues, but there is great value in European independence on this and the market opportunities that it represents.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, could I ask the noble Lord to take—

Lord Teverson: My Lords, so much of our lives depends on global positioning systems, but does not the United States, which owns the monopoly, have every sovereign right to withdraw that system when its own national security interests require that? Therefore, we need an alternative. The Chinese are building their own system at the minute; I do not see that as the great concern. The issue, surely, is that we should not be dependent on either the Chinese or the American systems; is that not the case?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we are likely to have a situation where a Russian, a Chinese, an American and a European system are in operation at some stage. It is right that we have a measure of independence, the benefits of which are considerable, as I have expressed. It provides us with important tracking assets, time synchronisation, precision surveying, incident management, disaster relief, accident alert services, and important guidance to navigation and traffic management. So, yes, this is a very important system.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, do the Government really not recognise that this project is based on a conceptual fallacy, which is that NATO, of which Britain is an integral and crucial part, can in no way be independent of the American satellite communication signals intelligence capability at any stage? Therefore, the idea that it is necessary to have an independent capability is fallacious and undesirable. Given that our Armed Forces are woefully lacking in a lot of equipment that they need, it would be a great deal better if the money being spent on Galileo were switched to that purpose. Will the Government at least consider that point?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, of course we keep budgets under careful consideration at all times, but these systems will obviously complement each other and provide a better service over time and much more precise data and information.

Border Control

Baroness Hanham: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What are the police-like powers to be given to the single border force as announced by the Minister for Borders and Immigration, Liam Byrne, on 14 January; and whether those powers will require primary or secondary legislation.

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, immigration and customs officers at the border already exercise police-like powers in targeting smuggling and immigration crime. Building on this principle, the new powers in the UK Borders Act 2007 enable designated immigration officers to improve support to the police. In line with the border review, we will work with Customs and police in identifying what further border-strengthening legislation may be required.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, does he not agree that police-like powers are really not good enough, that the designated immigration officers are able to detain the suspect or escapee for a limited period of only three hours and that those powers are inferior to those of a police officer, whose presence will still be required to perform an arrest of the held person? Will the Government implement a proper borders police force with full powers to deal with all matters relating to the control of our borders and, if so, when?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Baroness raises some important points. When we reviewed this, we found that there were some arguments in favour of a consolidated border police force of the type discussed. However, there were also strong arguments against that—with concerns about matters such as local accountability, ability to respond to new threats in particular areas and deployability of those police—which made it quite complex and something we felt we should not move straight into. This will be looked at further. However, establishing this force will make a considerable and real difference to the security of our borders.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that the police-like powers possessed by immigration officers still do not extend to Scotland, where many of the borders are? So the system is really pretty weak.

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct—the powers do not apply to Scotland. Immigration is, of course, a reserved matter, like Customs and Excise issues. However, stopping, for example, a man known to be guilty of a burglary in some part of the country, is not. It is for the Scottish Executive and Parliament to determine whether they should replicate these powers. We understand that the new Scottish Administration has given a commitment to review this. As far as the Government are concerned, it would make sense if we all handled these matters in the same way.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain what has happened to the consultation promised by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, at the Report stage of the UK Borders Bill, on the codes of practice to be followed by designated officers in exercising their powers of arrest, search and detention? In his speech, referred to in the noble Baroness's question, the Minister said that these powers would be implemented by day 100. How will he fit the consultation into that timescale?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I am not exactly sure what consultation was referred to—if I may, I will come back to the noble Lord in writing. Regarding oversight mechanisms and safeguards, a shadow organisation will be up and running from the 31st of this month. We will have designated officers available to start carrying out actions in a pilot scheme operating at Heathrow from 31 March. There will be a mechanism to look at the standard operating procedures. A new chief inspector of the Border and Immigration Agency is being selected at the moment and will be responsible for providing a review of all immigration activities. We have been working with the police and the president of ACPO to ensure that the relevant safeguards and oversight mechanisms are in place.

Lord Rogan: My Lords, what plans, if any, are in place for the proposed single border police force to both protect and police the UK land frontier?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, as I said, the review looked at the possibility of a single police force but there are considerable complications. One good characteristic of the current set-up is that it allows Special Branch police officers to be deployed much more readily. They already work very closely with these people. When I knew I was to be involved in answering questions on this matter, I visited places such as Dover, some of our people in Calais, the Channel Tunnel and Gatwick to see the set-up. Special Branch already works very closely with the new structure in place, and data-sharing definitely makes our borders safer.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, the establishment of the single border force is only one of 10 milestones under the border control action plan. Another is that confirmation will be given within 180 days that the number of foreign national prisoners deported from the country in 2008 will exceed those for 2007. Will the Minister advise whether that figure includes those serving sentences of less than 12 months?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I do not know the specific answer to that question so I shall come back to the noble Lord in writing with the detail. However, this is part of a 10-point plan, and I am convinced that we are making our borders far safer. That is something that we will all be very grateful for.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, what effect are these proposals likely to have in reducing the number of victims trafficked for sexual exploitation?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point. When tied in particularly with e-borders, they will add considerably to our ability to track and stop this vile practice. This is a very positive move. The rest of the actions that will take place this year will make our borders much more secure and enable us to track that much better.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, the new border police will deal with people who do not speak English. What qualifications will be required of members of the border police to ensure that people who come here can converse in a language with which they are familiar?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I do not know the specifics, but when I was visiting Gatwick, interpreters for various languages were available to assist in interviews when they were needed. However, I will write to the noble Lord about this.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, time is up for Questions—and as this is the only speaking part I get, I am going to use it. With permission, we shall have a Statement repeated later today on the British Council and Russia. It will be repeated by my noble friend Lady Royall and will be taken after the first debate, which is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson.

Crossrail Bill

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Members be appointed to the Select Committee to consider the Crossrail Bill:
	L Brooke of Alverthorpe
	V Colville of Culross (Chairman)B FookesL James of BlackheathL Jones of CheltenhamL SnapeL Young of Norwood Green;
	That the quorum of the committee be four;
	That the committee have power to adjourn from place to place;
	That the reports of the committee shall be printed, regardless of any adjournment of the House;
	That the evidence taken by the committee shall, if the committee so wishes, be published;
	That the committee meet on 19 February at 11 am.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Passenger and Goods Vehicles (Recording Equipment) (Downloading and Retention of Data) Regulations 2008

Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment)  (No. 2) Order 2007

Electricity and Gas (Carbon Emissions Reduction) Order 2008

Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997 (Amnesty Period) Order 2008

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I beg to move the four Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the regulations and orders be referred to a Grand Committee.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)

On Question, Motions agreed to.

Olympic Games 2012: Legacy

Lord Mawson: rose to call attention to building sustainable communities and securing a worthwhile legacy for the London Olympics; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to introduce this debate today, and I am encouraged by the interest shown by Members of your Lordships' House. I have lived and worked in the Lower Lea Valley in the East End of London for nearly 25 years. In 1984, I founded the Bromley by Bow Centre, which is 300 yards from the Olympic site. I have worked with a team of very able people and members of the local community to grow a community project which has gained a national and international reputation in community development and innovative approaches to the delivery of health, education and other public services.
	In 1998 I was asked by the then Secretary of State to become a founding member of Poplar HARCA, the first local housing company of its kind in the UK to take over responsibility for housing from the local authority and to pioneer an approach that would not simply build and renovate housing but would use the capital development programme as an opportunity to develop community regeneration. Our belief is that legacy is not just about land and buildings, as I fear much of the present Olympic rhetoric suggests, but about people, places and sustainable communities. Legacy is also, of course, about sport, but I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Coe, will forgive me if I do not focus on that. He is after all rather more qualified than I am to do so.
	Today this £300 million housing company owns and manages 8,500 properties. In 2007 it won the Housing Corporation's prestigious Gold Award for empowering communities and, in a recent ballot, 78 per cent of the residents of 900 homes on three estates voted to transfer their homes to Poplar HARCA. This company is now putting together a £1 billion capital development programme on an area of land on the opposite side of the road to the Olympic site, and equal in size. Yet to date it has not been possible to hold conversations about this with the London Development Agency and the Olympic Delivery Authority as prospective development partners.
	In 1998 I was also asked by the London borough of Tower Hamlets to be a founding member of Leaside Regeneration, a regeneration company that spans the Lower Lea Valley and which for the first time brought together councillors from the London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets, social entrepreneurs like myself and business entrepreneurs. At Leaside Regeneration, we do not just write strategy documents but build practical projects that create employment, stimulate the growth of new community-based businesses and put in place towpaths, bridges, road crossings and stations that knit together this fragmented and desolate river valley. One recent project, completed in December, was a £7 million DLR station at Langdon Park, at the centre of the valley, which connects isolated housing estates, opens up dead land for redevelopment and brings top-quality design into an area which was for so long treated to poor-quality materials.
	In 1999 I joined two people in a room at the Bromley by Bow Centre and we began to dream about bringing the Olympic Games to east London. We realised that the Lower Lea Valley was probably the only place in London with enough available land. Not all were convinced, but we persisted with our thoughts, and I went to see the noble Lord, Lord Rogers of Riverside, to check that we were not in cloud-cuckoo-land. We thought that if the Olympics were to come to east London, they could act as a catalyst to turn round the fortunes of the Lower Lea Valley and build what we called the Water City—a practical vision that would use many miles of waterways in the Lower Lea Valley to lift land values and once again drive the economy of east London.
	All of us who worked with families in the area knew how water, the old docks and their histories were inextricably linked together. Real legacy would need to connect at a deep level to have any meaning. Thankfully, the noble Lord reassured me that we were not mad and agreed to put a team around us so that together we could produce what has become the first document proposing that the Games should come to east London. I keep the document as a memento.
	I must declare an interest in all the above projects and explain why it has been necessary to bring them into being. Not only that, but I must come clean about the passion for east London that my colleagues and I share. We are not passive onlookers; we care greatly about the people who live there. Many of them are our friends and colleagues. We are committed to the area long-term.
	We are at a historic moment. The next 100 years for east London will be defined by the decisions made in the next 12 months. A great deal is at stake for some of the poorest communities in this country. We worry about what we see taking place under what one very experienced developer calls the smoke and mirrors of the Olympic Legacy. But to understand our concerns and appreciate what we mean by sustainable communities and legacy, we must go back nearly 25 years to the early days of my work.
	One of the patrons of the Bromley by Bow Centre for 17 years was Lord Peyton of Yeovil, who on many difficult occasions gave us very practical support and advice. In the early days when we were struggling to dance with the dinosaur of government, he reminded me as the experienced parliamentarian he was that,
	"government understands the shape of the forest but has no idea what is actually going on under the trees".
	Those words of wisdom accurately described my experience over many years in east London as I watched endless regeneration schemes, NHS structures and the like come past our doors. When you stay in one place for a very long time you watch successive government programmes. Their effect on people's lives is often quite different from the intention of the rhetoric that launched them.
	I mentioned earlier some of the organisations that we helped grow in the Lower Lea Valley not to impress you but to remind us all that creating sustainable communities is not about the macro but about the micro. It is about the devil in the detail of local relationships between people and organisations on the ground. It is not ultimately about structures, systems and processes but about individuals, relationships and friendships. It is about people before structures.
	The enterprise economy in which we all now live, and which this Government are quite rightly so keen to promote, is all about the devil "under the trees". That is where the fertile soil exists which is absolutely critical to growing a thriving economy and entrepreneurial culture in east London and to moving local residents away from historic state cultures of dependency to play an active and constructive role in co-creating a new place in east London. Only then will they feel any responsibility for its future.
	It is this fertile ground under the trees in which Olympic legacy must be rooted. Many of us in east London are increasingly concerned that these crucial local details are still not understood by the more than 40 public sector agencies involved in the regeneration of the area. I am sure that many noble Lords are all too aware of the Public Accounts Committee's recent critical report on the Thames Gateway, which describes in great detail the waste of money and human potential in this area. Real opportunities for deep and sustainable legacy in the Lower Lea Valley are being sliced away and lost.
	These are complex matters, but to get a handle on them we must start not at the macro level but at the micro. There are new and effective ways of doing regeneration that are being pioneered by social and business entrepreneurs in the area but which are still not understood. As any successful businessman will tell us, you must first understand the micro—one shop, the building of one supermarket—in great detail before, step by step, you build a national chain. Building sustainable communities is an organic process and the soil is now ready in the Lower Lea Valley.
	Noble Lords will be aware of the work of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, in chairing the inquiry into the tragic death of Victoria Climbié, which well illustrated that understanding one life and one experience in great detail can give important clues to the functioning or malfunctioning of complex public sector structures. Our own epiphany came through the death from cancer of a woman in Bromley-by-Bow named Jean Vialls in 1992. Her story has been well documented elsewhere. It led us to cut through the chaos of the local NHS at that time and to build our own health centre with our own GP and primary care team, embedded in a community setting that also addressed people's housing, education and social needs as well as stimulating them to take responsibility for their own future, to get jobs and to develop their own small businesses.
	Despite hosting visits from more than 17 government Ministers in recent years, with all the rhetoric which supports our work, it has not got any easier to bring about change in the face of government commissioning structures. Indeed, in many ways it has become harder as we navigate the endless public bodies that have landed in our bit of the planet.
	I articulate these realities not to carp or complain—such is life—but to draw attention to the fact that the next 12 months will, for good or bad, cast the die for the next 100 years in east London. What we see emerging, at its simplest, are two options: either we will build a new metropolitan district of London in the east, which we have called Water City—a vision now embraced by the main public sector bodies in their vision for the area—or we will end up with a giant housing estate which will look fine for the world's visitors and their television cameras in 2012, much as Dagenham was full of aspiration when it was first built. But will today's public sector bodies leave us with another Dagenham on our doorstep for future generations? If so, an historic opportunity will have been missed and east London will be destined to another 100 years of relative poverty and deprivation.
	It is not clear today which of these it is going to be and, importantly, which of the alphabet soup of organisations has the authority to lead the process. The Olympic Delivery Authority seems to have given up on legacy. It has too much on its plate—I am sympathetic to that—and has passed the baton to the London Development Agency, but the LDA has no track record of creating excellent places for people to live and work. If it does not now engage seriously with colleagues on the ground then yet further opportunities for real legacy will be lost.
	The over-complex Olympic process has already lost many opportunities to build on local partners' practical experience in the Lower Lea Valley. These are partners who will still be there in autumn 2012 when the show leaves town. Yet the Olympics still have the potential to act as a catalyst to lift the game on the £20 billion of development that will take place down the valley over the next 20 years. When you live and work in east London, you know that the Olympics are not the biggest show in town. They are, as one Newham councillor recently put it, only the third biggest regeneration scheme in Newham alone.
	The Olympic stadium has become the focal point of the Olympic developments but this is really the least of the opportunities springing from the Olympics. Many other opportunities still remain if the ODA does not hide behind its 11-mile security fence and if it allows some small "threads of gold" to connect the inside of its project to the outside world in practical ways. This is not about yet more consultation but is about involving successful local entrepreneurs in co-creating the future.
	Spending £9 billion in the area will of course make a difference—don't get me wrong, we welcome the investment—but the key questions are: are we investing the money well; will it make a sustainable difference; will it deliver the maximum added value to local communities; will it transform east London for the next 100 years; or will a great opportunity have been lost? If we grasp this opportunity then we as a nation may have something valuable to share with the International Olympic Committee—some practical clues about how you do legacy in a way that does not leave us, as I have seen at Homebush in Sydney, with a large empty site; or in the position of West Heidelberg in Melbourne where the 1956 Olympics were held and where you can see the effect of getting these decisions wrong on a local community as long as 50 years later.
	If we start to understand the devil in the detail of this more practical entrepreneurial and organic way of working which I have described, then we may well be able to produce new thinking about Olympic legacy which explores how you might justify putting projects of this scale into poorer countries in Africa or Asia precisely because the capital spend can be used to generate real legacy, real local sustainable communities and real change. I am fearful that the present approach to the London 2012 Olympics will fail to do this.
	What then needs to happen to build a truly sustainable Olympic legacy in east London? I would humbly suggest as a neighbour across the road the following thoughts. There is an opportunity to use the Olympic process as a real catalyst for change in east London. The problem is that the regeneration structures in east London are a mess. Those of us who try to make them work in practical ways know how serious that mess is and how much energy and time are being wasted. The present structures are confusing potential private sector investors precisely at a time when we want them to commit to the area. There needs to be simplification and some agencies need to go.
	The key players in my view are central government, the Mayor of London, local government, business entrepreneurs operating in the area and, so often forgotten, the social entrepreneurs and local communities that have a long-term stake in the area. It is surely not beyond our wit to create a simple, focused, business-like structure for east London regeneration that, first, recognises with honesty and humility that each of these key players has both strengths and weaknesses; secondly, recognises the legitimate rights, responsibilities and roles of each of these key players; and, thirdly, enables them to work together rather than against each other or in isolation.
	A good start has been made in relation to the future of the Olympic Park itself through the setting up of the Olympic Park Regeneration Steering Group which now includes local government leaders as well as the Minister and the mayor. This approach can be applied to the bigger picture of regeneration in east London and deepened to include business and social entrepreneurs. I humbly suggest that at this critical hour in the life of east London, we now all focus on the needs and interests of the people who live there, that we stop playing games, stop jockeying for position and work together in a way that understands that faith in democracy itself depends on government's ability to deliver real change on the ground in communities where people live and work.
	Only then will sustainable communities be created in east London, the Water City vision achieved and an Olympic legacy delivered—a legacy that moves us beyond a past that has locked some of the poorest people in our society into dependency cultures which have wasted so much of their creative human potential. The good news is that the Lower Lea Valley is not full of problems but is bursting with opportunity and is being held back by structures that understand too little of what is going on in the fertile soil under the trees. A worthwhile Olympic legacy is all to play for, but we must act soon or the moment will be lost. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I am enormously grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for giving us the opportunity to debate this extremely important topic. Perhaps I can reminisce for a moment. I well remember visiting—he probably does not remember—the Bromley by Bow Centre, probably at least a decade ago, and being enormously impressed by the work that he was doing in that area.
	In thinking about the debate, I was surprised earlier this week to receive an e-mail from Visit London, an otherwise worthy organisation, with an attachment rather grandly called, "London 2016 News". It concerned the preparations for the Olympics and I am slightly concerned that Visit London seems to have lost four years in the process. I am sure that all the arrangements for visitors will be ready in time for 2012 and not 2016. No doubt that was a mistake.
	I start by making my usual declaration of non-interest in this subject. Some noble Lords may have noted that I do not display natural athleticism. I blame some of that on being expelled from my games department for lack of effort—"Harris is excused games for the rest of his school career", at the age of about 12. None the less, I am one of those who is committed to the idea of bringing the Olympics to London. Indeed, I can claim even earlier dreams about bringing the Olympics to London in that I recall a dinner held at Elena's L'Etoile in Charlotte Street in the mid-1990s when the British Olympic Association was first beginning to think about the possibility of seeking to bid for the Olympics in London. This was before we had a Mayor of London and we wondered whether the local authorities of London would be able to unite sufficiently to work towards that end. Perhaps rather rashly, on behalf of 32 London boroughs and the City, I gave the assurance that I thought it was possible and that the bid should be made.
	I declare an interest as an adviser to the board of Transport for London. Clearly, the current investment programme in which Transport for London is engaged will help to deliver a transport legacy for east London—I hope well before 2012. There should be a new London overground network in time for the Games; we shall see the East London line extended south to Croydon and north through Hackney to connect with the North London line at Highbury and Islington. The area will also benefit from the Eurostar rail link; 50 per cent extra capacity on the Docklands Light Railway and an extended East London line connecting to an improved London overground network. There will be new walking and cycling routes, as well as extra capacity on the Jubilee line, and that is before the arrival of Crossrail. There will also be the extension of the DLR to Stratford International which will be a further boost to regeneration in the Lower Lea Valley south of the Olympic site.
	I also declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, which will face enormous operational challenges in managing the event itself and in preparing for it. Even in that context, where it is largely an immediate operational requirement, there will be a real legacy of benefit to the country. For example, there should be a new control centre which will enable the police to manage national policing operations in a way that has not been possible before. There will also be an enormous requirement for the training of officers all over the country for specialist duties which will be required as part of the Olympics and, again, that will have a lasting legacy benefit.
	Above all, I hope that the Metropolitan Police and other forces will use the opportunity to build new types of relationships with local communities, something which I believe is possible as part of this process because every nationality in the world will be represented in London at the Games and it also likely that every nationality in the world is resident in this great city. Building links with those communities will be part of effectively policing the Games.
	On the progress being made, I think the signs are encouraging. There will be a substantial legacy in housing and I hope we will see a legacy in other parts of the infrastructure. We shall certainly see a new urban park; and we are already seeing contracts let not just to companies in London but also to companies based around the country. That is all good news and it is all welcome.
	However, I want to echo some of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, about governance and whether the legacy is adequately protected. We have a tripartite arrangement on some of the decision-making, and that is before the Government is included—quadripartite, if that is a word, if the Government are included. There is also local governance, which has responsibility for ensuring that we deliver the greatest sporting festival the world has ever seen. I am confident that we will. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Coe, will tell us exactly why that will be the case. We have the ODA, which is responsible for delivering the physical buildings that are needed to make that happen. Separately, the LDA is required to sort out the legacy. The ODA is required to "have regard to" the importance of legacy. I am concerned that as the going gets tough—there will be times during the next four years when the going gets extremely tough—the legacy will be squeezed.
	There is also the potential for shifting costs. I shall give an example although I do not believe that this will necessarily happen. It is possible that the ODA will shift costs on to LOCOG. For example, by investing less in physical and technical security, LOCOG could be required to engage more people during the event itself on day-to-day security. There is the potential for all sorts of problems. I really do wish that we had a more robust governance structure.
	I am also concerned about some of the whingeing we hear about this project. On Tuesday of this week there was a debate in another place on the National Lottery. I single out the contributions of two Members of Parliament, not because they came out with particularly ludicrous comments or because they are poor representatives of their areas but because I was amazed by some of the nonsense that was said by people who do not really understand either London or the importance of this project for the nation. Adam Price, the Member of Parliament for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, complained that the poorest communities in the United Kingdom were having to finance the regeneration of London. Peter Wishart, the Member of Parliament for Perth and North Perthshire, talked about the traditional support for the disadvantaged, the dispossessed and the marginalised being lost. Of the 10 constituencies with the highest rate of unemployment, six are in London; of the top 50, 10 are in London; of the top 100, 21 are in London. Fifty constituencies—

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, if everyone—

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I am well aware of the point that my noble friend is going to make. I am on my final sentence, which I would probably have concluded had my noble friend not interrupted.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, if everyone overruns by two or three minutes, the Minister will be unable to reply.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, there are 50 constituencies in London with a higher rate of unemployment than Carmarthen. There are 56 with a higher rate of unemployment than Perth and North Perthshire. Given that London subsidises the rest of the country to the tune of £16 billion to £20 billion, those Members of Parliament should look at where the money is going and whether some of that money should be invested in London.

Lord Coe: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on securing this timely debate. Having been so intimately involved in the Olympic project over the past two or three years, I can say that the noble Lord's work has become very apparent to my teams, both in the London organising committee and in the Olympic Delivery Authority. I know that they would wish to join me in thanking the noble Lord for his groundbreaking work.
	I shall endeavour to complete my words on time and to budget. First, I declare my interest as chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, an organisation charged with the staging of those Games. Once again I remind noble Lords that the organisation raises all its money from the private sector. The Olympic and Paralympic Games are two of the biggest sporting events in the world. They provide a unique opportunity to demonstrate sporting excellence. However, as we made clear throughout the bidding process, and subsequently, they are also about so much more than that. At a fundamental level, the Games have the ability to drive agendas, inspire change and work as a catalyst for good in communities in east London and far more broadly.
	That is the case not just during the Games, when the eyes of the world will be upon us, but also in delivering for the future that crucial legacy, of which the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, spoke so eloquently. That is why, although of course both the organising committee and the Olympic Delivery Authority have sport at the heart of the Games, sustainability underpins all our thinking.
	This is not just a whim or an aspiration. Working with organisations as diverse as the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 and the World Wildlife Fund and in consultation with individuals, businesses, social entrepreneurs and communities around London and the country, we have committed ourselves from the initial planning stage to the concept of a one-planet Olympic Games.
	"Sustainability" is one of those words which have become so frequently used in recent years that it is difficult to avoid the stigma of jargon. With London 2012, that is certainly not the case. It is a concept that underpins our vision and all the strategic objectives for a successful Games. The Olympic board all signed up to the sustainability plan at the end of last year. We defined the term broadly and it set out the challenges and commitments for us to meet at all stages of the project in the five key themes of climate change, waste, biodiversity, inclusion and healthy living. Let me be quite clear in case there is the remotest impression in this House that the approach currently adopted by the organising committee is the norm in the delivery of an Olympic Games; it simply is not. No previous host city has ever developed such detailed work from the very outset of its planning.
	What does that mean in reality? Naturally, there is a strong focus around the Olympic park and the physical and community regeneration legacy. The park itself will leave the largest urban space created in Europe in the past 150 years: 120 hectares of ecologically managed land, decontaminated, and a huge asset to people living in east London and, more profoundly, the Lower Lea Valley; the Olympic village, built to the highest specification for energy efficiency and accessibility, will leave 9,000 new homes for Londoners and key workers; our venues are designed and built with future community use in mind; and transport infrastructure improvements will benefit commuters and business alike.
	Tackling emissions and environmental degradation will lead to direct improvements for communities. The consequences of pollution fall disproportionately on the poor, so spotlighting climate change, waste and biodiversity will help the people of east London and internationally.
	Let me be frank: as the chairman of the organising committee, I do not need clean rivers or 95 per cent of site waste to be recycled to stage a successful Games but, more than four years before our opening ceremony, they have already been achieved in some scale through our groundbreaking focus on sustainability.
	London, through sport—so often the hidden social worker in our communities— is taking the lead and boosting the standard of living of its population. Promoting inclusive communities is fundamental to that vision, too. London is the most diverse city on earth, and the richness and openness that come from its many cultural influences played an important role in nudging us across the line in Singapore. We should never forget that.
	The London Games will be open to all and will promote the change in attitude towards groups which often face disadvantage or discrimination, particularly in disability—the softer legacy, if you like. However, getting this right will also bequeath an invaluable "hard legacy" through people gaining skills and employment and through economic opportunities for social entrepreneurs.
	Perhaps I may take two very good examples—first, around skills and our pre-volunteer programme. There will be a need for more than 50,000 volunteers working at venues to help athletes and spectators to get the most out of their Games experience. This programme is now targeting unskilled and historically excluded groups from across the country, and in 2012 some 10 per cent of volunteers will be drawn from graduates of this programme—newly skilled and each with a brighter future for themselves, their family and the communities they live in.
	Secondly, on economic opportunities, the London 2012 Business Network, which I launched in Manchester yesterday, will help firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, get "bid-fit" for Games-associated contracts. Let us be clear—I say this as someone London-born, Sheffield-raised and Loughborough-trained—that although the capital is the host city, we are taking this message to all nations and regions so all can share.
	Finally, London and Britain have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to promote healthy living through sports participation. The Olympic Games will inspire a new generation to take up sports that they may have been unaware even existed, our medals a catalyst for improved and increased participation.
	Communities will also benefit from the physical infrastructure: the stadium, specifically designed for community use after the Games, an aquatics centre and a velodrome, finally delivering sporting facilities to match London's reputation as a world leader in so many other areas.
	There are 1,685 days until the opening ceremony in east London—that is just 240 Thursdays. We are determined in that time to get the sporting preparations right, on time and on budget to deliver the most memorable Games ever. Even more so, we want to see the next four years and six weeks of sport act as a springboard for the social, economic and cultural life of Britain's people into the future.
	The last question I want to be asked at the closing ceremony to the Paralympic Games in 2012 is, "But couldn't we have made much more of all this?". That means that my job and those of my team will not always be easy, but we are all determined that the answer to that question will be "No".

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I know that very few Members of Lordships' House can do the four-minute mile; I suspect that all could do the six-minute speech, remembering that when it says six minutes on the clock, you are over time.

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for initiating this debate. I intend in my speech to concentrate specifically on the cultural legacy that I believe that the 2012 London Olympics can secure.
	As everyone who takes part in these debates now knows, the modern Olympic movement was created by Pierre de Coubertin, an amateur boxer, but also a poet. The cornerstone to his vision in reviving the Olympics was to bring sport and culture together in one great festival. He did not simply desire to glory in great physical feats but, as the ancient Greeks had done, to celebrate mind as well as body. That was precisely the line taken in London's bid for the 2012 Games, and one of the reasons it won. It promised to leave a lasting cultural legacy.
	In a speech last May, the then Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell, expanded on the Government's concept of the cultural element. She said:
	"there is a rare chance and a real opportunity: to deepen and widen engagement with culture in all its forms ... Because this time, there will be so much more to the Cultural Olympiad than the ceremonies ... More than the live concerts ... It will be the beginning of something much, much more ambitious. The matching of physical excellence with cultural excellence".
	Those words are wholeheartedly to be welcomed: the ambition to place culture as a central part of the legacy of the London Olympics stated absolutely clearly.
	In the same speech, Ms Jowell referred to the building of,
	"a clear delivery structure which will enable every level and every area of the cultural community to play its part".
	It is with that delivery structure that we on these Benches have concerns in the areas of finance and organisation.
	When London won the Olympics, there was general rejoicing, but right from the start there were concerns among the cultural and arts sectors that money would be siphoned off to pay for what was essentially a sporting extravaganza—correct concerns, I am afraid. As the costs of the Olympics have escalated, so have the raids on the lottery good causes fund, with knock-on effects for the cultural sector in general, but also for the cultural Olympiad in particular.
	The escalation goes on. Simon Hoggart of the Guardian this week calculated that the amount of money we are spending on the Olympics every 44 minutes between now and 2012 is £180,000—equivalent exactly to the annual grant that the Arts Council is threatening to take away from the Bush Theatre. He is quick-witted in more ways than one, apparently. However, these statistics sit uneasily with the stated aim of having culture at the heart of the Olympics.
	There are three tiers to the Cultural Olympiad. Tier 1 is the mandatory ceremonies, for which there is a budget, although we do not have a figure. Tier 2 is 10 major cultural events involving key partners such as the BBC, the British Museum and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Tier 3 is a UK-wide cultural festival. The last tier is unique to the London bid and is designed to encompass thousands of local and regional events as part of our nationwide celebration.
	However, there is no allocated funding for tier 3. This money has to be found locally and by the voluntary arts and heritage groups rooted in our communities. The last diversion of lottery funds hit them particularly hard. At the end of last year, the Minister replied to a Question for Written Answer on lack of funding, saying:
	"The Legacy Trust, which has £40 million of funding, will be launched in November 2007. It will provide an additional source of funding for Cultural Olympiad projects".—[Official Report, 21/11/07; WA 76.]
	This trust seems very keen on being launched, but less keen on actually leaving port. It has been launched no fewer than three times, most recently in May. This is not clear or structured behaviour and the consequence is that it is only now that the process of tendering for the money involved has begun. Of that money, £6 million has already been ring-fenced for the UK School Games; £24 million is going to the nations and regions; and a paltry £10 million for everything else. Compare that with the £750 million being diverted from the arts via special Olympic lottery games. Can the Minister assure the House that the money will not be taken from this £10 million allocated for those unspecified costs for the mandatory ceremonies?
	The Government argue that the arts should contribute to the Olympic bill because the Cultural Olympiad that runs alongside the sporting one will be a huge success. It will not be a huge success if it does not happen, and it will not happen if there are not enough funds. At the moment, there is not nearly enough to achieve what the Government envisage. We on these Benches have suggestions about where extra money can be found for lottery good causes and consequently for the cultural organisations. One is a gross profits tax for the lottery and the other a crackdown on lottery-style games—so-called grey games—which, through imitation, dupe people into spending their money elsewhere than the National Lottery. We believe that these proposals could raise significant amounts. In Tuesday's Olympic lottery debate in another place, the Secretary of State indicated his support for our proposals and I hope that the Minister will confirm today that the Government intend to set up a review into them.
	We on these Benches look forward to a successful Olympic Games and we wholeheartedly endorse the idea of the Cultural Olympiad as envisaged by the Government. It is a unique opportunity to celebrate UK talent and creative talent, and to expand audiences, inspire the young and deliver much more than just a worthwhile legacy. This will only happen with proper resources and proper structures.

The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, one thing is very clear. We are thinking about single individuals. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, will certainly leave a very visible and very important legacy in east London. Like other noble Lords, I am most grateful to him for having introduced this subject. I would like to associate myself with many of things that he has said.
	I obviously have to declare an interest, because I am responsible for 500 communities of social entrepreneurs. As faith is such a dodgy question, I had better describe them as such. That is what churches, temples and gurdwaras, actually are—communities of social entrepreneurs. I am also responsible in the Diocese of London alone for 150 schools. The noble Lord, Lord Coe, talked about diversity. He is absolutely right. In one of our schools in the vicinity of the Olympic Stadium in Haringey, 70 languages are spoken. For homiletic reasons, it is convenient that they run from Albanian to Zulu. We have an astonishing diversity. Nowhere in the world has anyone ever before tried to build a community on the basis of that kind of diversity.
	The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, talked about the soil. When my mother worked for George Lansbury in Bow in the 1920s and 1930s, the real social glue that held the community together was membership of a political party or a union. That is no longer the case. The unignorable communities of social entrepreneurs, and the bodies that regularly assemble citizens in considerable numbers, for a good and constructive purpose, are mosques, temples, gurdwaras and churches. We need more adequate ways of relating to these communities of social entrepreneurs and to the faith communities in the immediate vicinity of the Olympic developments. We should review how that is being done at the moment and look at ways in which it can be done more adequately.
	We are trying to help. Christians in London have set up a new organisation called More Than Gold, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney. On Tuesday we will license our chaplain for the Olympics, Canon Duncan Green. That is only a Church of England contribution to a general Christian effort—a fully ecumenical effort—that recognises that we have been building good relations with other faith communities for years. We want to work in an inter-faith way. For instance, immediately after the recent regrettable comments about no-go areas in our city were made, we were able, with Muslim colleagues in Tower Hamlets, in the immediate vicinity of the new Olympic developments, to issue a joint statement denying that that description was true in our vicinity.
	So there is a very hopeful community here. I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that if we are thinking about delicate issues of security for the Olympics, part of making them secure will be to involve local faith communities and use them as a conduit of communication with the larger constituency.
	We are trying to be positive. However, I echo much of what the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said. We are contemplating a new town of perhaps 40,000 people eventually. That will be one of the great legacies of these Olympics—40,000 people in one of the most deprived areas of the UK. It will have an enormous impact on existing communities and on the whole of east London. I am aware of local frustration at the latest planning applications, which seem to have revised downwards the scale of the original legacy provision. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, I want to know how local people are not only to be informed but more thoroughly involved in these developments.
	My last word is that I am certainly not part of the whingers' chorus. The great legacy from these Games that we want for the whole of the UK is inspiration, better health and better confidence. That is what they promise and that is what we are all hoping for. But if that is to be achieved, we need to pay serious attention to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, about engagement with the local community.

Baroness Valentine: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for securing this debate. I, too, have visited the Bromley-by-Bow Centre and been impressed by his activities there.
	Understandably, government attention has focused on staging the Games in 2012, and excellent progress is being made. But it was the promised legacy that persuaded the IOC to pass the Olympic torch to London. There are many forms of legacy, but the Games will have succeeded if they transform people's lives. This morning, I will focus on the once-in-a-lifetime catalyst that the Olympic legacy represents for the revitalisation of the East End of London. It is easy to say that the East End needs changing. It is more difficult to define what it should change to. This week, at the O2 in Greenwich, a certain reformed girl band is singing:
	"I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want".
	We must uncover what east London really really wants. We must offer a positive, ambitious new vision which embraces and raises the aspirations of east Londoners, new and old.
	My contribution to the vision for the area would include building on its potential as an international tourist destination, raising employment by exploiting the area's advantages as a business location, and building modern, necessarily dense, attractive green and waterside housing where people from all walks of life both want to and can live. Perhaps new and old east Londoners want allotments, pubs, wind turbines, mosques or churches. We need to uncover what enables people to relate to their east London village, to make each a place where people want to live and work—a new-generation London.
	East London has the potential to be a world-class visitor destination. It has a string of venues: the O2, the world's most popular entertainment venue; ExCel's exhibition centre; the Silvertown aquarium; the Olympic swimming pool and velodrome; and Lea Valley Park. The South Bank has seen extraordinary change in the last decade, so why not the same for east London in the next? It has superb access to markets, with the world's most important financial centres on its doorstep, together with European links via City Airport and the Channel Tunnel station at Stratford, and of course Crossrail will add further links. East London could aspire to be a quartier for French headquarters in Britain; East 15 could become the 15th arrondissement. After all, it takes the same time to get from Stratford to Paris as it does from London to Manchester. Whatever the right answer, the opportunity is there.
	The Lower Lea Valley is next door to the Olympic park. It is a forlorn, ex-industrial area where planners have identified the potential to build 35,000 homes in the next decade. It has eight miles of canal and river frontage—the distance along the South Bank from Greenwich to County Hall. Because of the challenges, the Government designated it a priority area for regeneration—before we won the Olympic Games—and appointed an urban development corporation. However, government investment in the Lower Lea Valley languishes. The so-called Legacy Masterplan Framework for 2012 looks almost only at the park. Regeneration infrastructure for the Olympic park needs £2.7 billion of Olympic money, yet only £120 million has been committed to the Lower Lea Valley, an area over twice its size. One thing is for sure—that will not be enough to underpin the targeted 35,000 homes, let alone a broader vision.
	The area needs government commitment to providing bridges, roads, schools, health centres and utilities. Perhaps the mayor or the new Housing and Communities Agency could underwrite that investment. It would be naive to hope that developers will cough it all up; the public sector needs to woo them to the area, not deaden potential by taxing first and delivering—maybe—later. Developers have to tackle a plethora of policy and bureaucracy emanating from a veritable multitude of public bodies. There are more bodies responsible for the Thames Gateway than emerged in the aftermath of rail privatisation. Development is subject to regulation from three London boroughs, Lea Valley Regional Park Authority, English Partnerships, the Housing Corporation, the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, the mayor and his agencies, the DCLG's Thames Gateway Executive and a partridge in a pear tree. What is the Thames Gateway? Where is it? The 1980s marriage of convenience by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, between parts of Kent, Essex and London initially helped to secure attention and funding, but nobody living in Stratford, Greenwich or Ebbsfleet would call themselves a Thames Gatewayer. London now has a mayor and a measure of devolved government so, for Londoners, the Thames Gateway may have passed its use-by date. I could argue that the Thames Gateway was as relevant as Clwyd or Yugoslavia.
	Of course London needs to grow eastwards, and these areas need regenerating. But the funding and powers of the Thames Gateway Executive should pass to the organisation set up by the Government to deliver regeneration in this area, the currently underresourced London Thames Gateway Development Corporation. That corporation should be made accountable to the mayor, while embracing the involvement of the boroughs and, most importantly, their communities. Then public money will be targeted where it is most needed, taking account of local people's needs and aspirations. Private investors will then gain the confidence to produce plans for a vibrant, flourishing east London.

Lord Haworth: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for allowing me the opportunity to speak in this debate about the regeneration of what he rightly described as the fragmented and desolate river valley that the Lower Lea Valley is. My only qualification for speaking is that I lived for more than 20 years in the Lower Lea Valley in Old Ford. I may be one of the very few Members of your Lordships' House who has lived for such an extensive period of time in the area in question. Not only did I live at Old Ford for more than 20 years, I was married at Bromley-by-Bow registry office. When I participated in sport, which is rather a long time ago, I used to play squash regularly on a Monday morning at Eton Manor, a facility that the Lea Valley Park Authority provided in those days. So I know the area fairly well.
	Our house was in Tower Hamlets but less than a minute's walk from Hackney and probably only three minutes' walk from the London Borough of Newham. Hackney Wick station, one of the most desolate places on the railway network which for years has been unmanned—not only was no one selling tickets at the station, there was not even a machine from which you could buy a ticket—was my local railway station.
	Some 15 years before living there, in the very early 1970s, my first connection with what is now very much in the centre of the Olympic park was as part of a working party of the governors of North-East London Polytechnic when I was the student representative. We were anxiously searching for a site to build housing on for students and young persons because there was an acute accommodation shortage for students at North-East London Poly and other educational institutions in the early 1970s. I vividly remember identifying a football field at Clays Lane as a suitable place to build relatively inexpensive social housing, which was to be organised on a co-operative basis for students from the polytechnic and other young local authority workers and the like. The problem with that site was that the overhead power cables, which are shortly to be removed from the Olympic site, meant that we could not build our flats higher than two stories.
	Those flats were built in the late 1970s and I discovered subsequently, rather to my embarrassment, that one of the blocks of flats had been named after me. "Howarth Court" came into being and, to my chagrin, I discovered that they had spelt my name wrong. It is not only the annunciators in your Lordships' House which occasionally make that error. It has been a source of embarrassment for many years that I had a block of flats named after me with the spelling wrong. After 30 years, they have recently been knocked down.
	This brings me to a point that I want to emphasise—the importance of social housing. If housing was a serious problem for young people in the early 1970s, it still is now. All the units of accommodation that we were successful in getting built have now been knocked down to make way for the stadium, so I am glad that in the legacy plan that the mayor has published, a copy of which came in this morning's post in time for this debate, there is a serious emphasis on housing and a commitment that the Games will have an immediate legacy of 9,000 high-quality homes—a great deal more than the ones that were knocked down at Clays Lane—of which at least 30 per cent will be affordable to Londoners on low incomes. There is an aspiration for considerably greater housing development after the Games are concluded in the peripheral areas.
	I shall not say very much about jobs, although they are crucial in the area. I merely emphasise, as did the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that east London has more people of employment age who are out of work than almost anywhere else in the United Kingdom. I was going to say something of the importance of the transport link but the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has covered that fairly comprehensively.
	I appreciate some of the difficulties that have been referred to in the debate today, and probably there will be some more, but, on an optimistic note, a tremendous amount of work is already going on that I find encouraging. I went back to the site yesterday and walked down the Greenway, newly tarmacked, signposted and better lit public footpath that takes one over a bridge on Marshgate Lane in the centre of the site. The vision of the activity is phenomenal; I have seen nothing like it anywhere in the world, except in China. There must have been a dozen huge earth-moving machines and a dozen large trucks; a fantastic degree of activity was taking place on that site yesterday. It staggered me and the friends of mine who came with me to look at the work that was going on on that site.
	There has been a lot of talk about legacy, but some of it is already happening. On the fringes of the park, at Hackney Wick station, new housing developments are taking place. Street lighting is being improved and the station has already been improved. This is a place where I was mugged a few months before moving away from the area, not long after I came into your Lordships' House. It happened on a dark night. The area was an extremely lonely place to go and many people have asked, "Why does anyone want to use Hackney Wick station late at night?". Already that environment is being transformed. The housing being built there and the street lighting make it safer. The legacy is already with us; I am very optimistic about that.

Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on securing today's debate. Let me start by declaring my interests. I am chairman of the British Olympic Association; a member of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and its audit committee; and a member of the Olympic Board, which provides oversight of the London 2012 project, the composition of which also includes my noble friend Lord Coe, the Mayor of London and the Olympics Minister.
	The British Olympic Association's role is to prepare select, manage and lead Britain's finest athletes at the summer, winter and youth Olympic Games. In Great Britain and Northern Ireland the BOA is responsible for the development and protection of the Olympic movement, whose vision is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport. However, as the host nation, our role goes further to reflect the International Olympic Committee charter. We believe that as important as our success in the 2012 Games is the sports legacy and inspiration which the Games has the ability to deliver to everyone, able bodied and disabled, the length and breadth of our nation.
	To date, the focus, as noble Lords have mentioned, has been on the regeneration of the East End of London and the construction of the Olympic park. Now I believe the attention of the nation, the Government, the national governing bodies of sport, Parliament, the Central Council of Physical Recreation and local communities needs to turn to the Olympics sport legacy, which needs to be costed, with clearly defined time lines on policy objectives, accountable, transparent, openly discussed and deliverable. For us in the British Olympic Association the starting point was Gordon Brown's Olympic manifesto as the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. On 24 October 2006, he wrote an article in the Daily Mail entitled,
	"My vision for increasing young people's participation in sport by 2012".
	Among others, the article made the following commitments: to,
	"make the build-up to the 2012 Olympics the centrepiece of a national campaign on sport and fitness";
	to,
	"restore school sport to its proper place ... with a wider range of sports and exercises that play to all talents";
	that,
	"every school should offer four hours of school sport per week by 2010",
	and, in addition to those four hours spent within the curriculum time, that every school should,
	"offer after-school sport and links with a range of local sports clubs";
	that,
	"every school should have access to playing fields and better sports facilities";
	that,
	"every talented young sports star should have extra support to help them train and develop";
	and that a target should be set of,
	"up to 1 million men and women and young people attracted to volunteer in our schools and communities".
	He concluded by saying that this was,
	"a great ambition for 2012—a nation fitter in health and stronger in civic spirit".
	In November of last year—by now of course as Prime Minister—he went even further by announcing that,
	"the Government has issued a challenge to sport. We want two million more active people by 2012".
	The time has now arrived for all of us, from Ministers and the Olympic Board, down to local sports clubs, to rise to that challenge. We at the BOA, who also raise money from the private sector—as my noble friend has just mentioned, we have been totally independent for more than 100 years—have been fully and publicly supportive of every single one of the now Prime Minister's commitments.
	In our role as a host nation of the NOC we take seriously our duty to ensure that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games leave a fitting sports legacy in this country. We recognise that the Games provide an opportunity to change the culture of health and fitness in the United Kingdom and a real chance to meet the targets set by the Prime Minister. We also recognise that the proposed Olympic sporting legacy was fundamental to London's successful bid to the International Olympic Committee to host the Games. No doubt everyone in this House joins me in hoping that every promise made in 2005 is delivered upon by 2012 and that we all have regular opportunities to monitor those commitments.
	I am confident that with an outstanding sports Minister in Gerry Sutcliffe, who is totally committed to a lasting legacy for sport, these objectives can be achieved, but they will neither come cheap nor be attainable without fundamental reforms to the sports policy the Prime Minister has inherited, which has struggled to deliver the commitments for an Olympic sports legacy of the type he has outlined. To that end, a number of reviews are currently ongoing regarding the legacy of London 2012. The Government's legacy action plan is nearing completion. Additionally, Sport England will soon be publishing its own Olympic sports legacy report, and the mayor's plans for London in that context are due to be outlined presently. In the Olympic Board's London 2012 sustainability plan, to which my noble friend has referred, it has been mandated that the British Olympic Association will be consulting with sport and the general public for their views on whether the desired legacy outcomes are being addressed. It is our anticipation that that work will begin later this year.
	Aside from all those reviews, the news in late November last year that the first concrete financial commitment on the subject of sporting legacy had been issued by the Government was very welcome in the context of the programme to deliver cultural and sporting activities across the UK. However, key to the Olympic sports legacy, which must touch Olympic and non-Olympic sports alike, is the need to improve sports facilities across the country. A comprehensive Olympic sports legacy needs to address all sports facilities and to address participation, the development of excellence and new systems that ensure that every child in this country has their talent identified and developed to the full.
	Expectations have understandably been raised and hope has abounded that community facilities will be reinvigorated, local clubs will be assisted and our children will be offered much, much more. I still think these aims can be achieved and that the Prime Minister's Olympic manifesto commitments can be honoured, but only if action is taken now—decisive action on an all-party basis. The Games and the Olympic movement give us an opportunity to deliver real benefit to all young people, practical value in terms of sport and recreation about which one day I hope our children will reflect, "Our parents never had the chances we have today". That must be our goal for London's Olympic sports legacy.

The Lord Bishop of Newcastle: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for securing this timely debate. From the other end of the country, I associate myself with many of his remarks. We are all excited about the prospect of the Games coming to London, and it is widely recognised that the legacy of the 2012 Games has to be a worthwhile one for London, the nation and the regions. Just as there is a big smile on the faces of the people of Newcastle this morning for the first time in a long while following yesterday's events at St James' Park, I fervently hope that the same will be true for us all as the Games get under way and for the legacy thereafter.
	This speech will be different from many of the others we have heard today because I want to speak from the regional perspective of the north-east. It is hard at the moment, four years away, to feel anything other than that the Games belong to London. I do not sense any kind of ownership of the Games yet in other parts of the country. Yet the construction of the Olympic site and the organising and running of the Games are already having an effect on communities not just in east London but many miles from the capital.
	I want to raise two or three points from the perspective of the north-east. First, there is obviously the question of funding. In the north-east there is great concern about the voluntary and community sector; concern that, as resources are targeted towards the Olympics, the essential funding for projects working with some of the most disadvantaged people and communities will suffer. There is a particular concern about the continuing availability of lottery funding. Add to that the significantly reduced ability of the Northern Rock Foundation to fund key local voluntary projects, and the north-east is facing a double whammy. Funding from all sources into the voluntary and community sector has been crucial in enabling the north-east to find its way following the collapse of all the traditional industries in the 1970s and 1980s. If the Olympics cause a further decrease in funding availability in our region, we will not be able to claim that the London Olympics have contributed to sustainable communities across the country.
	Secondly, our own experience of regeneration through the creation of large-scale central venues for the arts and culture has been pretty mixed. Although there are some wonderful new buildings on the Tyne, the quayside is unrecognisable from 20 years ago, energy and vibrancy have been brought to the life of the city and we are proud of what has been done, it has been good only for those who are able to access our wonderful new facilities. I meet a kind of dislocation between the cultural opportunities presented by the quayside and the lives of the people who live in adjacent communities, some of whom experience very high levels of social deprivation. There is a dislocation between the wonderful concert halls, art galleries and the like and the people who feel distant from them and do not participate in the activities of the arts, culture and heritage agenda. There is no evidence at all of any trickle-down theory here.
	I suggest that there are some lessons to be learnt and it is important that those preparing for the Olympics learn from other situations where large-scale cultural projects have successfully overcome social divisions rather than exacerbated them, so that the legacy for the communities in east London is greater sustainability and more cohesiveness rather than less. For my money, the prime ingredients for building sustainability in local communities are local participation and local ownership. Things imposed on people by central bodies or external agencies do not work, nor do the more cosmetic kinds of regeneration initiatives that we sometimes find. Local participation and ownership, the right kind of infrastructure, a good quality built environment, the best kind of public space; all of these help to build sustainable communities.
	In the end, the test is whether people feel included, whether they want to live in a place and, indeed, whether they can afford to do so. Securing a worthwhile legacy for the Games is not just a London issue, the effects will stretch far into the English regions. So let us ensure that there is indeed a worthwhile legacy, not only in London and in the nation but in the regions as well.

Lord Addington: My Lords, when I saw that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, was introducing a debate on sustainable communities and the Olympics, I decided that I would address those communities that should be most directly affected by the Games: the sporting communities.
	I shall focus on those small sporting clubs that provide a centre of community and involvement for those in them. Anyone who knows anything about amateur sports clubs knows that they become the hubs of people's lives for periods of time. Often a parent who has played in the first team may now be involved in coaching young people. Such clubs, I have discovered, can also become employment brokers, especially for casual labour. These places offer many types of activity and a lot of support.
	What do the Olympics do for this type of sport? Potentially they will do not very much directly, unless we are careful, because the elite level can be seen as another animal, something that does not affect or inspire us and is beyond us. The challenge here, which the Government and the entire Olympic movement have accepted should happen, is to try and make the two relate to each other.
	We have already heard much about the almost certain improvements to the physical environment into which we are pumping money. The noble Lord, Lord Coe, said that they would not have to clean up the environment in order to run a successful Games and it is absolutely true: you do not need to do that for a major sporting event. As anyone who went to the old Wembley stadium would know, you can attend a wonderful sporting event even though you have to go through a pretty grim area. But in this case we have taken on the challenge of doing something more. We are trying to get in on an idea or a concept and trying to make it accessible. That is quite a big challenge to the culture and nature of what is going on around us.
	Thus we have a goal. However, there is also a built-in fear for some smaller groups. My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter—who has apologised for not being in her place, but her contact lens has come loose—mentioned that many of these groups are frightened that their funding will be cut and diverted towards the elite end. We can play our own games by saying that the Olympic Games should create knock-on effects and inspiration. However, if the funding to pump-prime these smaller groups is affected then there is a danger we will lose one of the major benefits: to inspire small communities around the country. If we want to facilitate people in the regions outside London and inspire them to get involved in their own clubs, perhaps in non-Olympic sports, then they will need the extra funding. The noble Lord, Lord Coe, gave a wonderful example of what happened at his athletics club following his own success, when they simply could not handle the numbers wanting to get involved. We cannot achieve a similar result now unless funding is guaranteed. The CCPR has a wonderful way of putting it: the major events have a long sunrise but short sunset.
	Concentration on this aspect of the Olympic movement should have started a while ago. As the activity intensifies, where are the structures to encourage local participation and to tie it in with overall Olympic success? Are we guiding smaller groups on how to get in on the benefits? Are we telling them that they should be involved? Are the Government convinced that they are doing enough?
	The idea of the Treasury driving sports policy is new to me but it may work because the Treasury, which tends to have more attention-grabbing things going on around it, has the money and the power. I have always felt that if sport is to deliver on its huge potential, it must attract both money and power either directly or indirectly. I believe that the Department of Health should have far greater responsibility for sport. If the idea took off, some lovely accounting procedures and number-crunching could show how greater participation in sport created savings in the NHS. I do not know whether the Treasury will be quite so amenable to the idea.
	Can the Minister tell us how the Government are tying these two structures together? How are they helping in this process? How are they encouraging people to back the Olympic idea? That would improve the position not only of the Olympics but, directly, of those people themselves. What if people do not feel that they are competing? That is the real question. If this group of small and, one hopes, self-sustaining communities does not feel that it is part of the Games then it cannot get the benefits of the Games. If we ignore that, we may be ignoring a central driver for social good and the most obviously available benefit of the whole process.

Lord Ouseley: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, not only for allowing us the opportunity to participate in this debate but for the excellent work that he has been doing as a leader, though he would not necessarily describe himself as that, within east London, among people who need his leadership and inspiration, and for the promotion of the can-do philosophy that he uses to guide his work.
	I am prepared to say something quite different in this debate for two reasons: first, the limitation of speaking for only six minutes; and, secondly, my receipt of a letter from a prisoner in Pentonville which connects me back to why I am here. This person is seeking to use his own can-do philosophy to do something about the avoidance of guns and gangs and he is asking for help from within the prison environment. Although that may seem removed from this debate, I would like to talk about how we can connect real-life issues, not only for Londoners but for people right across the UK, with the Olympic and Paralympic Games. I am keen to keep stressing that there are Olympic and Paralympic Games because we are almost forgetting that the can-do culture extends to people with disabilities who will inspire us with what they can do by participating and succeeding.
	Sustainable communities are about people, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, spoke about earlier; they concern their vulnerability, their strengths, their interdependency and their quality of life. It is not just about the quantifiable investment, the infrastructure and development, the environment or the economy, although all of those are hugely important. The London Paralympic Games in 2012 have the potential to be inspirational not only for Londoners but for all those who are ready to have their potential unlocked, appreciated, engaged, nurtured and developed for both self and public benefit. They have the potential to challenge the public cynicism that exists both in the north-east of England—although I am sure that Kevin Keegan will put that to rights—and in places such as Peckham which are not that far from east London.
	We have to recognise that everything connects to the issues in people's lives. The cynicism extends because people's experience is that they have been promised so many benefits from a whole range of regeneration programmes and investments that have not been realised. This is an opportunity to create and apply a can-do philosophy that inspires young and old, men and women, people with disabilities, the unemployed, the homeless, the poor and the deprived by seeing each person as a special individual.
	The Olympic and Paralympic Games have already shown how they can inspire enthusiasm, as witnessed in the euphoric celebration that we had on the streets of London in July 2005 when London was awarded the host status. The commendable leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Coe, and his multicultural team showed that can-do spirit. They won the Games for us to host, against all odds. I was certainly one of those celebrating a victory that he did not expect, and a lot of other people felt the same. We must now push on to spread the philosophy that—whoever, whatever and wherever you are—you can do it in pursuit of your dreams.
	No one can deny the sustainable attributes and qualities of the people of London, or indeed of the entire UK population. London is able to regenerate itself, as the noble Lord, Lord Coe, said, and we do not need the Games to create the improvements that are happening. London's diversity is a huge strength in attracting inward investment. Record numbers of tourists visit each year from all parts of the world. London is also home for the many migrants who settle here, filling gaps in the economy left by the outward migration of others to leafy suburban areas and less congested parts of the country. We also observe a growing aged population and more people experiencing disabilities and mental health illnesses. There are increasing levels of dependency.
	Three public policy strands are therefore sufficiently important to be explicitly stated within the legacy goals of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Community cohesion, social inclusion and anti-poverty programmes must be intensified and connected more comprehensively with all other policy areas. We will not overcome cynicism or the failure to engage with ordinary people who feel excluded from all these initiatives if we do not connect with a diverse range of programmes which all purport to bring social benefits.
	Last week the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, published a pamphlet from which I shall quote one sentence that epitomises the issue we have to deal with. It states:
	"Entrenched inequality, which sees people living increasingly separate lives according to their wealth, means there is a danger of a small but significant underclass developing in Britain".
	His research found that poor and wealthy households are living ever further apart. While the Government have lifted large numbers of children out of poverty since 1997, 1.4 million children are still poor, despite having at least one parent in work.
	The legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games must have a gearing effect that recognises, as it will do, the needs of elite sports men and women, wider participation, and those who are not part of the can-do culture in affluent London. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be costly but they have the potential to be inspirational. There is no doubt that those associated with developing and delivering the Olympic and Paralympic Games are taking steps to address the social inclusion, community cohesion and diversity agendas. We in Parliament have an obligation to help to get it right for the benefit of all the people. They can do; we can do; we must do. To use inspirational words which are currently arousing interest and involvement in politics across the Atlantic, I say, "Yes, we can".

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, in following with pleasure the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, I shall narrow my focus to one particular set of communities under the trees, the Gypsies and Travellers, some of whose sites have to be redeveloped. The Olympic Delivery Authority aims, to quote from its website, at,
	"reintegrating communities on either side of the Lower Lea Valley ... enabling social cohesion and social, economic and environmental regeneration in one of the most deprived parts of the UK".
	It adds that Olympic development,
	"will also celebrate cultures, people, languages ... We have taken a deliberately broad and inclusive definition of culture".
	The London Development Agency, its delivery arm, states:
	"We strive to tackle discrimination and promote equality and positive community relations".
	It is,
	"committed to listening and learning from its partners and stakeholders".
	Work is certainly going on with tremendous commitment—I have been around the building sites, too.
	However, what happened on one site in Newham was not like these fine modern management words. The Travellers at Clays Lane had lived peacefully with the settled community for 36 years. They were offered and accepted a new site, which then, for complex, oddly unforeseen planning reasons, was withdrawn. The substitute site was a recreation area. It is felt that, in their urgency to vacate the land for Olympic development, the LDA and Newham Council have disregarded the needs and wishes of both the Travellers and other local residents, causing, I am told, much resentment in the local community. Far from gaining any benefits from the Olympics, they believe they have lost some of their scarce green space and community facilities. The good relationships between the Traveller community and the other local residents which had been built up over such a long time have been undermined. Rather than an increased sense of community cohesion, Travellers now feel more segregated and vulnerable.
	After this, as I have said earlier in your Lordships' House, the Travellers were given 12 different dates for being moved, and they spent many weeks, with their children, with demolition, noise, heavy traffic and dust all around them, post stopped, phones cut off, and street lights gone. An allegation was made by the ODA that the Travellers had themselves caused health problems by burning toxic waste in a furnace, which turned out not to exist.
	The All-Party Group on Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform, of which I am a vice-chair, discussed these matters with representatives from the ODA and the LDA who were kind enough to come in. They agreed that a senior official would deliver an apology about the wrongful allegation in person. Yet again, that is not what happened.
	Some of your Lordships may have had experience of developers making life uncomfortable for residents. They will know that developers can be persuaded to negotiate compensation, lessen noise and disruption, and restrict hours of noisy work, often—if they are sensible—through a consultative process where all local people have the chance to be involved. That is not what it was like at Clays Lane. Could it be because the residents were not accustomed to forceful discussions with powerful developers and did not number lawyers and other professionally articulate citizens among them that they were treated with so little respect? What price the ODA's social cohesion policy here? Where was the listening LDA?
	We hoped that lessons had been learned after our discussion in Parliament—indeed, the people from the ODA and the LDA assured us that they had. But the episode of the letter to residents is not reassuring. The next test of the reality of the ODA's fine policies about sustainable communities with regard to the Travellers is the nearby site of Waterden Crescent, where the ODA and the LDA assured us that the promised, but so far non-existent, written plan for building works will now be issued every month.
	Nobody in these sad episodes is asking for development to stop, and nobody wants the games not to succeed. Indeed, everyone was delighted when the Government pulled off the tremendous coup of hosting the games. But unless all those in the path of the great machine of the Olympic Delivery Authority are treated with as much respect as if they were powerful and influential people, they will end up with a legacy of mistrust, alienation and an impoverished quality of life.
	Nearly £9 billion is to be spent in the area to be redeveloped. We shall have the largest new urban green space in Europe. Can we not ensure that this kind of money is spent at all levels with the right values for truly sustainable communities? The Newham Travellers have their own thoughts about a more positive legacy. They would like the opportunity to return to a part of the Olympic park area after 2012, on their own site, where they will be away from heavy traffic. They have some support from the mayors of London and Newham, and the LDA. If this can be written into the Olympic legacy, it would show that the Travellers had finally been heard. I hope that my noble friend, too, can support it.

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I was one of those who did not want the Olympics to come, and I doubt that we would be hosting them if we had been honest about the costs that they would involve. However, now that we have the Olympics, it is up to all of us to make them work as best as possible for the whole country.
	My noble friend Lord Coe said that he would ensure that they were memorable; I have no doubt that they will be. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, asked, what will be the legacy? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London told us of some of the opportunities and the new village that is to be built. I hope that appropriate places of worship will be within that new village, and I hope, particularly, that a Church of England church will be within it, as that is our established church in this country.
	Conversely, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle said that the north-east had felt no benefit. As far as I am concerned, Newcastle is practically in London, so if there is no benefit in Newcastle, there is no benefit whatever north of the border.
	To the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, I say, "Don't hold your breath about the Government". The Government will mess it up, even though they will do so with the very best of intentions. It happens to be one of the difficulties of government that has plagued every Government in every country throughout the world. However, what I have enjoyed about today's debate is the enthusiasm and passion that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, brought, and his real feel for the community.
	I have an equal passion for the north of Scotland. A lot of what is happening there depends on arts and heritage funding, because that produces tourism. Tourism is key in the north of Scotland. We do not have much flexibility with regard to farming; there are not alternative things that one can do down in the south-east; industry, particularly the fishing industry, has been decimated; and Dounreay is being decommissioned. We need jobs in that area, and tourism is perhaps the most important sector for us, because it provides employment and keeps the communities together.
	However, the real difficulty with the Olympics is the raiding of more than £1 billion from the National Lottery fund budget. That is having enormous consequences. There is plenty of scope for debate as to how and why the Government force the lottery fund to spend its money in certain ways and whether the heritage is relevant so far as the Heritage Lottery Fund is concerned, in view of some of the recent achievements. Those are questions for another day.
	I am delighted to be able to say a big thank you to the Government about what the Secretary of State said two days ago in another place; namely, confirmation that there would be no more raids on the National Lottery fund—£1.1 billion is quite enough and way in excess of what there should have been—regardless of whether the costs of the Olympics will increase, which I am sure they will. They will go well above the current budget.
	However, there are two consequences. The first is that, a big foot having been put on the main artery that has stopped the flow of funds going to some worthwhile local projects, there is a loss of momentum—a large one built up over the past years. It is all very well to say that we are going to do something in the future—which I will come back to—but when you lose that momentum, people do not put in applications, they lose enthusiasm and regenerating that is going to be difficult.
	My second point is on how one is going to compensate the Heritage Lottery Fund for what is being forced on it at the moment. In our last debate on 17 May, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, whom I am delighted to see in his place, replied to my noble friend Lord Baker that,
	"when the Olympic Park is sold, money will come back to the lottery".—[Official Report, 17/5/07; col. 376.]
	There are big questions about the value of land in east London—and, at the moment, about land throughout the country. It appears that there might be quite a discrepancy in what comes back to the lottery. Therefore, I ask the Minister two questions. First, will any repayment to the lottery come back with interest attached? Secondly, would the Government consider allowing the National Lottery fund to have an overdraft account guaranteed by the Government up to £1.1 billion? If it did, the flow of good local projects could be kept going so that we did not have what really worries me—a big stall period for four years in which people lose interest, with consequences for employment and jobs locally.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, unlike the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, my starting premise is that I believe in the UK version of the Olympic vision. I believe it is good for Britain and good for London. Let us hope that my prediction is better than that of the noble Earl, who seems to be the Cassandra for today's debate. However, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate and for an inspirational contribution. I took note of his focus on people, places and sustainable communities. People have paid tribute to his track record. If I had a quibble, it was when he seemed to say that it was not the macro that was important, but the micro. Surely the macro is important. We have to deliver the Games. However, I understand the importance of the micro. In fact, surely the task is that we have to combine both.
	The noble Lord, Lord Coe, although he did not deliver on time this time—I hope that he will hit the 2012 deadline, and on budget—did well to remind us that the Olympics and the Paralympics are two of the biggest sporting events in the world. As he rightly said, they give us a unique opportunity.
	The difference in the UK and in the British approach will be that we have put sustainability at the heart of our thinking. Looking at some of the disastrous attempts to stage Games, with stadiums which unfortunately languish these days, we know how easy it is to invest an awful lot of money and not get the kind of sustainable payback that we are all looking for.
	The task is to run a great Olympics and at the same time have this wonderful sustainable legacy. It is ambitious. However, if we look at what we are investing in, we can see that these will be world-class venues with a great afterlife that are not, therefore, just being planned for the games. We will have the largest urban park in Europe for 150 years; 4,000 new homes, many affordable—I would like the Minister, when he replies, to give us some assurances that the amount of affordable housing will not be reduced because of this problem with land values—20 kilometres of roads, 32 bridges, new utilities and 12 kilometres of underground power lines; 7,000 new jobs in construction and 12,000 in legacy; and the key involvement of people who have not been in employment for a long time on the volunteer programme. That is an imaginative and important approach. Trying to involve small businesses and employers is something that I see as a key part of this programme.
	I share the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, about the cultural legacy. We do not want sport to be seen in a narrow dimension. I hope that the Minister will give some reassurance in that respect. We do not want the great sporting event to undermine the valuable contribution that arts can make to not only this event, but the spiritual and even sporting life of the country. I agree with the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London—I am not sure whether he is in his place—about the role of faith organisations. However, not only faith organisations but schools need to be fully involved in this programme.
	I enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on the importance of the sports legacy. He is right to remind us of that. We have a golden opportunity to improve sports facilities and encourage participation. Looking at the disincentive created by the cost of participating in sport, particularly when you come from the disadvantaged areas of your community, I sometimes think that we ought to treat sport in the way that we treat the health service—free at the point of use, certainly for young people. Getting them involved early on makes a vital contribution to their lives.
	I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the need to ensure that this does not become London-centric. I see that there are moves in that direction. The importance of both regional and local participation is a valid point. I certainly concur with the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, about the importance of community cohesion being fed into this project. If the local communities are not involved, we will only be doing half the job.
	I am trying to ensure that I do not incur the wrath of the noble Baroness—unfortunately she is not here—by making sure that I keep to time. Is the Olympic glass half full or half empty? If you are the optimist among us, it is half full. I hope we are going to see it as half full, because we have a wonderful tendency in this country to denigrate ourselves and undermine the possibility for achievement. If we want the Olympics to be successful, sure, we need constructive criticism. However, there has to be a belief that we can do this.
	We will never have a better opportunity to create a sense of national identity, inspire a new generation of sports men and women, and create a positive image of the UK. We might even encourage more tourists to Scotland, which might please the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I want to end on a little e-mail printed in yesterday's copy of the Times which made me smile, which said: "Despite all the criticism" over costs,
	"this country is committed to hosting the Olympics so let's just get on with it, do the job well and hope it doesn't rain".

Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for securing this debate. Not for nothing has the noble Lord been referred to as the Ezekiel of the East End, castigating local public sector bodies in east London for their sometimes wimpish approach to community regeneration. I know, because as chairman, until last year, of the local North East London Strategic Health Authority, I was on the receiving end of the noble Lord's occasional diatribes—which were all the more irritating for being right.
	Today, I am associating myself wholeheartedly with his vision for Newham and the Lower Lea Valley, as part of the Olympics' legacy, which has been so admirably described by him and which needs so much input to make it happen right for the people of the East End. I make no apology for coming back to the people who are living there now and will be living there in the future.
	I shall talk particularly about the health legacy of the Olympics. We have heard these figures quoted before in this House, but, according to the statistics, a child born in Newham is likely to live seven years less than a child born in Westminster or Kensington and 10 years less if he or she smokes or develops early vascular disease as a result of secondary diabetes, largely as a result of obesity and lack of exercise. The sad fact is that growing up in Newham is bad for your health. One of the youngest, fastest-growing population groups is simply not improving as fast as the population groups of other places in the UK. That is not for want of local initiatives by the NHS and a rather good local authority.
	Routine physical exercise is the key, not participation in sport. I remind noble Lords that the Office of Science and Technology Foresight report on obesity published last year outlined the complex issues—the social, technological and cultural drivers—involved. Nevertheless, it cannot be said better than it was said by Tessa Jowell:
	"The problem is not the number of calories kids are taking in, but the fact they are doing less to burn them off".
	While adult energy expenditure is thought to have decreased by as much as 30 per cent in the past decade, calorie intake appears to be the same or even a little below that of 1980. It is a matter of promoting exercise as a whole.
	The key thing that we know about creating urban environments in which physical exercise is encouraged is that you need to make it a part of the central regeneration plan. Even using up 200 or 300 extra calories a day is all that is needed to prevent obesity in most people. The design layouts in the built environment, such as streets, the location of recreation facilities, parks, public buildings and transport systems, can either encourage or discourage. A lovely study in Atlanta by Frank and Engelke showed that when neighbourhoods are divided into four quartiles based on an approach of building healthy physical environments, each quartile increase in mixed land use, making people more likely to walk to shops, schools, workplaces and other destinations such as churches close to their dwellings, facilitates better active living and is associated with a 12.2 per cent reduction in the likelihood of obesity. Each additional kilometre walked each day is associated with an almost 5 per cent reduction. That is why so much of the design of the Olympic park legacy is so vital.
	I shall not say much about the sports facility legacy. We feel that it must be important but we know, sadly, that increased enthusiasm for specific sports after a great event tends to be short-lived—rather like the appearance of tennis rackets every Wimbledon fortnight, which disappear a month later. But we know that those facilities are much more likely to be used by local schools and adults if we provide them as part of a naturally increased physically active environment. We must get the physical activity right as a general rule, before we can improve sports. 2012 provides a unique opportunity to address some of the health issues that the UK faces. We can test what really works. Are the Government intending to use the regeneration area as a test bed for some of the ideas expressed in the Foresight obesity action plan, for example?
	I end by expressing some concern about the politics of all this. To date, after the euphoria of the bid, the Department of Health has not demonstrated a keen commitment to the Olympics health legacy. There has been a recent reshuffling of public health responsibilities yet again, but no clarity about who is responsible for what in this area and who will interface with other departments involved. Public health specialists in NHS London and its constituent PCTs have some really good work going on. Sport England used to be interested and involved in improving physical exercise, but its input, although greatly appreciated, has now transferred to the Department of Health. There is a worrying vacuum in the department about who is taking forward this particular responsibility. Will the Minister explore in some depth with his colleagues who is in charge of making the Olympics health legacy really work to improve physical activity and the take-up of the sports legacy? I fear that at present no one is.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on initiating this debate and on his knowledgeable and visionary speech demonstrating his commitment to the regeneration of the East End of London. Many noble Lords have emphasised that one reason for our bid being successful was the legacy aspect. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee's report last year on Olympic funding and legacy made the point that the success of the London bid was to a great extent not just due to the plans for the Games themselves but to,
	"visionary emphasis on the Games' potential legacy of a lasting increase in participation in sport by all sectors of the community".
	It goes wider: the IOC, in its report on the London bid, said that the London Olympics would be the catalyst for the regeneration and development of the Lower Lea site for the Olympic park and that it would be a significant sporting, educational, environmental and social legacy. There was also, of course, the promise of a cultural legacy, referred to by my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter. These were highly significant factors in our win over Paris by 54 votes to 50. The noble Lord, Lord Coe, and the bid team are to be hugely congratulated on that emphasis on legacy and sustainability which made it the differentiator versus our rivals.
	That is all the more reason, as the IOC and the National Audit Office subsequently pointed out in its report last year, why careful planning must be put into place to create a strong and lasting legacy for the 2012 Olympics, particularly as regards the Olympic venues in terms of whole-life costs, ownership and management, to avoid them being underused or unaffordable after the Games. In overall terms, it recommended setting clear, quantified legacy objectives.
	Securing the legacy of the 2012 Olympics is a massive task with myriad objectives, as we have heard during this excellent debate. Many organisations are involved—LOCOG, the ODA, the LDA, the mayor, the Assembly, DCMS, VisitBritain, Visit London, the BOA, Sport England, UK Sport, the Legacy Trust, the national, local and sporting organisations, culture and arts organisations, the five host boroughs and even the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as other bodies more local to the area, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson. Ensuring that all those bodies link together effectively under common strategies is vital.
	There are great expectations of what the legacy of the London Games should be. A useful recent study prepared by the London East Research Institute and commissioned by the London Assembly entitled, A Lasting Legacy for London?, sets out the experience of previous Olympic cities and how London can learn from their experience. Its verdict is that in the light of that experience, with Barcelona having done particularly well, all the London objectives are challenging or very challenging, particularly as regards skills, sports participation, disability awareness, tourism and employment.
	The mayor's five key legacy commitments were launched this January. They are similar to those set out in the Our Promise for 2012 document published last June. These are, under the heading of sporting, to make the UK a world-class sporting nation; under "regeneration", to transform the heart of east London; under "community and culture", to inspire a new generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural and physical activity; under "sustainability for the Olympic park", to make the park a blueprint for sustainable living; and under "tourism", to demonstrate that the UK is a creative, inclusive and welcoming place to live, visit and for business. Those are noble aims, but noble Lords have rightly highlighted a number of areas in which achieving those legacy objectives are at risk.
	On the future use of the Olympic park, the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, referred to the very limited geographical remit of the legacy masterplan framework, which is designed to demonstrate what the future of the park will be, how it will benefit surrounding communities and long-term management arrangements for the park. We need to take the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, seriously when he urges us to engage with the local community, especially business and social entrepreneurs and, indeed, as the right reverend Prelate urged, to engage with the faith communities.
	Physical activity targets are also part of the legacy. We heard from the Minister yesterday—and this is a somewhat surprising development—that the Treasury is now responsible for the achievement of some of those legacy objectives. I have never thought of the Treasury as a place that engenders a great deal of enthusiasm in local communities, but there is hope yet. As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and my noble friend Lord Addington urged, we need to connect with the Olympics at grass-roots level.
	Then there is the Cultural Olympiad. There are concerns that we are pulling in different directions. Tier 3, as my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter explained, is all about trying to activate those local community organisations to take part in the Cultural Olympiad, but there are also cuts in lottery funding for those selfsame organisations. We have the Legacy Trust with a very small amount of money dedicated to this task; £10 million will not go very far. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, spoke about lottery funding being used for the Olympics. We will return to that later this month when we discuss the regulation. I do not intend to talk much further about that.
	The essence of the matter, in terms of the local community, was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson—that of moving from dependency. The noble Lord's concern, shared by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, was that the whole governance structure needs to be looked at, or we will be trying to co-ordinate a huge number of agencies in a very haphazard way. Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, reminded us that there should also be a legacy for disadvantaged communities, such as Gypsies and Travellers. We also have to demonstrate legacy outside London.
	In the few minutes left to me, I want to highlight the opportunities and threats surrounding the tourism legacy of the 2012 Olympics. VisitBritain says that 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the net economic benefit over a seven-to-10-year period will accrue through tourism and give a £2.1 billion boost to Britain's international visitor economy. Almost two-thirds of this growth will occur in the four years after the Games. Sydney and Barcelona were particularly successful with their tourism legacy. There is no doubt, as the recently launched Winning: a tourism strategy for 2012 and beyond sets out, that through private-sector sponsorship and inter-agency partnerships, we could have a successful strategy and campaign to deliver that legacy.
	That document sets out an ambitious legacy, but it is a chance to reduce Britain's tourism deficit, which now stands at some £18 billion per annum. This accounts for some 40 per cent of the UK's balance of payments deficit. There are currently declining numbers of foreign visitors staying overnight at UK destinations. Despite the very upbeat launch of the tourism strategy for the 2012 Games last September, and the warm words of Margaret Hodge, the reality is very different. The chairman of the Tourism Alliance, representing 200,000 travel, tourism, hospitality and leisure businesses and the leaders of a number of major businesses had to write an open letter to the Prime Minister only a few weeks afterwards in the following terms:
	"The DCMS announcement of an 18% cut in funding for the national tourist board, VisitBritain, in the lead-up to the Olympic Games comes as just the most recent in an ongoing series of Government decisions that demonstrate the downgrading of tourism's importance to national policy... The industry does not understand the logic of cutting funding for tourism marketing in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics. The Government has stated that tourism and regeneration will be the two main beneficiaries of Britain staging the 2012 Olympics ... If the planned cuts to VisitBritain's funding are followed and the need for coherent national tourism policy ignored, Britain will almost certainly miss the opportunity to maximize the economic and social benefits that the tourism industry has on offer".
	This is a powerful letter. On the one hand, one of the largest industries in Britain, accounting for some 9.4 per cent of UK GDP, writes that it believes that there are great opportunities; on the other hand, the Government have continually failed to give VisitBritain the resources it needs. In fact, it has cut its funding by £9 million, equivalent to 18 per cent of its budget. Do the Government understand the importance of the tourism sector? Do the Government not perceive the need for a strong marketing campaign?
	There is much more that I could say on this subject. I hope that, despite the fine words in Winning: a tourism strategy for 2012 and beyond, what the Minister said about the resources available to such a campaign as legacy tourism for the Olympics not yet having been decided are correct, and that further serious consideration will be given to this. On these Benches there is enormous enthusiasm for the Games. We believe that the glass is more than half-full, but the Minister needs to answer these questions constructively and take seriously all the points that have been made in this debate.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for initiating this debate. I looked up the noble Lord up in Dod's, because I had not met him, to try to find out where he might be coming from. I was a bit concerned and confused, so I asked if the noble Lord could spare me some time and I thank him for that. We had a very interesting conversation, and told me where he was coming from and what his passion was. My passion is on my lapel: I am passionate about Olympics, all Olympics, but particularly about 2012, and have been ever since the idea was conceived.
	Having said that, today's debate is very much on one subject, which is legacy. The word legacy and, in particular, the legacy of the Games, as it has appeared today around the House, means something very different to every single person. I have found it quite difficult to find a way through of my own. I have certain absolute ideas about what I would like to see, but noble Lords also have many. During the course of the debate, we have learned a number of facts. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has given us a lot of facts about all the agencies who are involved in sustainable communities, and so on. I brought some of the papers with me to refer to, but everything in them is covered.
	Those interested in the social legacy, if I may call it that, have a number of organisations already set up and in place to deal with that, including the Legacy Trust, Social Enterprise London and the Legacy Masterplan Framework. LOCOG and the various mayors are committed to working on the moral, people and community legacy—the legacy for communities, after the Games have gone and the razzmatazz of 2012 is finished.
	However, far more practical things are going to happen. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, cheered us up by telling us some very good news—which I hope most of us knew—about how London will be transformed by new transport plans. That has to be good. We have to believe that planners can make the best of that beautiful area, and that a concrete mess will not be left at the end of it. Frankly, I do not believe that will be the case. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, will be able to encourage the noble Lord, Lord Rogers, to continue to work in the south-east. I believe that LOCOG and all those involved, including ODA, which I have heard a lot from in the last few days, are on top of the job and will do what is required.
	Two days ago, I listened to a very good presentation, again by LOCOG, on the plans for the culture Olympics—the Cultural Olympiad—and they are hugely encouraging. One of my criticisms to the powers that be so far has been that 2012 is too London orientated. At the start of today's debate, it was too south-east London orientated. When we had the opening discussions and debates in your Lordships' House and we passed the Olympics Bill, now the Olympics Act, this side of the House and the Government said openly and strongly that 2012 should be a national happening, a UK-wide happening, and that there would be benefits across the United Kingdom.
	I do not believe that we have done enough. I use the word "we" because we are totally one party. I completely agree, as does my party, with Tessa Jowell on this. We are cross-party joined in proceeding down this road to this event. Therefore, "we" have not yet got a grip on selling the benefits of 2012 to the country north of—I do not know—perhaps Aylesbury or the M25. We must move that way and get up to Newcastle. I listened carefully to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. I was in Newcastle with my millennium hat on and we did them quite well. It has a wonderful football club, but it is only right that the feelings and the spirit of 2012 should reach Newcastle. It should reach not only there, but also my noble friend Lord Caithness up on the north borders of this nation.
	How do we do that? There is a spirit that has to move and excitement that has to be generated. But in more practical terms, we have to turn to participation. The Government have got to get participation going in schools to include the handicapped, the unhealthy and the young. Ever since I have been speaking on sport in your Lordships' House I have talked about cross-departmental activities and happenings across education, health, the Home Office and the DCMS. Have we got anywhere? There answer is no.
	One of my real desires, wants and hopes for the legacy is that something will happen and we will get movement across and benefits into health, the Home Office and policing though finding more exciting things which will encourage the young to go a different way. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, will appoint his 12 apostles to go through the kingdom and do what he has been doing in south-east London much more broadly on the back of the happenings and the spirit of 2012.
	On participation, we also need more space, more facilities and more structures for school sports. I was on the Sports Council Northern Ireland goodness only knows how many years ago. Even then—perhaps 20 years ago—we were talking about the gap in participation. We lose a huge amount of talent when people leave school and do not make the step into clubs. Yesterday at lunch, I was talking to the chief executive of UK Sport. He agreed that that gap is still there. In the sporting world, the talent we lose in the step between school and club is huge. It cannot be beyond the wit of man and communities with inspiration to take this forward and start to bridge it.
	I have been talking to my party colleagues, and I spoke to Gerry Sutcliffe, the Minister with responsibility for sport, yesterday, about the need to improve the funding and organisation of the national organisations which support sporting people; not only the Olympians and people at the top end of sport, but also the sport-for-all end of life—people involved in the Sports Council people and Sport England. Of the 100 per cent of funds that goes to UK Sport—I am not knocking UK Sport—probably only 50 per cent gets to the front line. It is too cumbersome and there is too much bureaucracy. There is not enough clarity. At my national governing body, the British Bobsleigh Association, we have a guy having to work almost full time filling in forms and doing everything necessary to keep the corporate governance right, the audit preparations right, to keep applications right, et cetera. That costs us money that should be paying for people in sport.
	This was a fantastically exciting debate. The spirit of 2012 is alive and well, and going well. The legacy is in very good hands. The organisations and the structures are there. The ODA, LOCOG and the LDA are all on top of their jobs. People need to be positive, to sell it to the country and to inspire those around us, including local government and local government authorities. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, well and I thank him for bringing this debate today.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I, too, begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for introducing this debate. Up to now in the House we probably have concentrated rather more on the sporting events and the significance of the Olympics on sport. All along the Government have been committed to the concept that the legacy must be fulfilled in order that we get not only maximum benefit from the Olympic Games—I emphasise that the legacy will benefit east London—but also of course that we see the legacy wider across the country too.
	As several noble Lords said in their contributions, a major factor in the bid being successful was the extent to which it was demonstrated that these Games would leave not whitened sepulchres and white elephants behind them but support for sustainable communities. The Olympic park would be a feature of the locality, but more importantly, other structures, particularly, 9,000 dwellings, would be available to local communities.
	The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, is in an excellent position for bringing high-flown concepts down to the gritty reality of what happens on the ground. I take very sincerely his representations on the necessity for a great deal of work to be done on co-ordination. I think that he suggested that the structures in east London are a bit of a mess. My noble friend Lord Haworth lives in that part of the world and bore testimony to some constructive work going on, and the response of local government. I think that that is the perspective also of those concerned—for example, the noble Lords, Lord Coe and Lord Moynihan—with the development of the plans for the Games. Co-operation is going on with local authorities, but it needs to be improved.
	The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, is emphasising more than the local authorities: he is referring to engagement with local communities so that they have ownership of many of these plans, which is exactly in line with the Government's thinking and all those who are concerned with making the Games a success. Certainly, unless we achieve these legacy objectives, we will fall short of that which we expect from the Games.
	The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, probably prompted the question of the regions in the most critical form and, in a rather more constructive way, the right reverent Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle also emphasised the regions and the north-east. It is important that we ensure that the legacy is for the whole country. It is certainly the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, indicated, that we will need to exploit the great tourist potential of the Games. In fact, many factors explain why the bids should win. London— and the United Kingdom as a whole—is a great tourist attraction for people from all over the world, and we need to improve the facilities and to guarantee that the attractions are up to the mark for 2012 in a way that also enhances them in terms of sustainable heritage after the Games are over.
	My response brings slight cynicism to the debate. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for opening with an optimistic perspective. Most noble Lords have stressed the opportunities that are there and need to be seized rather than excessive worries about where we are now. There should not be excessive worries about where we are now. As the International Olympic Committee has made it clear, the Olympic Games preparations in this country at present further advanced than for any other Games that have been held.
	We should not do ourselves down in this context. A great deal of thought has taken place; much of that has centred on the great structural activity involved and on cleaning up of that extensive site—the challenge that the location of the Olympic Games raises. Transforming that part of the Lower Lea Valley into the Olympic Park—into one of the great parks of Europe—and which will be comparable to the Royal Parks, which were given to the nation two centuries or so ago, will be a truly historic achievement. A great deal of work is inevitably being concentrated on that. My noble friend Lord Haworth bore testimony to the degree of activity on the site.
	Many of the objectives that noble Lords sought with the Games will be realised later. Let me make this obvious point: it is inevitably the case that apart from those directly involved in the Games—those planning for the Games and those responsible for the development of the Olympic Park—there is a feeling that there has not been great activity and that the nation has not been greatly enthusiastic thus far.
	I remind the House that we are talking not about the next Olympic Games but about the Olympic Games after that. We have the Beijing Olympics this year. I maintain that there will be a transformation in the public's response. Once the Olympic Games have taken place in Beijing and the torch has been handed over to London, the Games will excite the enthusiasm of many in the nation; the Olympic Games always have that stimulating effect. But London is going to be up in lights at the end of the Games as the next provider of the Olympiad. That is bound to change the nation's perspective and bring about a realisation of the imminence of the Games and the benefits that they can bring.
	The focus in the early days will inevitably be on the sporting possibilities. After all, the nation will have to acquit itself in these Games to extremely high standards. The nation would think us remiss if there were not advanced plans for the development of the skills and abilities of our athletes and sports men and women; the training of a great athlete takes many years and our potential victors in 2012 are not necessarily making all the headlines for their achievements at the moment. One or two people who make the headlines in sport today could go on to win medals in the London Olympics.
	Having said that, we should shift our perspective to the question of the legacy, because that is of the greatest import. There is the sporting legacy in terms of the stimulus to our young people to engage in exercise and participating sport. I emphasise to the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, that the challenge of co-ordinating the necessary onslaught against the problem of obesity in our nation, which is particularly marked among young people, will be carried out by the Department for Health, but I have not the slightest doubt that the Olympic Games can play their part with regard to encouraging young people to recognise that their exercise and participation in sport can make for a healthier and happier life. We want those objectives to be realised.
	I heard the lament of the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about the diversion of lottery funds towards the Olympic Games. Let me make it clear again—I believe my right honourable friend the Secretary of State made this clear earlier this week—that the budget for the Games is fixed at £9.3 billion. That is what we will expect to see the Games deliver against those resources. Built into that figure is a significant contingency fund as well so the figures are realistic.
	However, resources from the Lottery cause pain elsewhere where they might have been directed. While the noble Lord and the noble Baroness omitted the point from their contributions, I know that they are extremely knowledgeable in this area. I hope that they will give due regard to the fact that the Government substantially increased their grant-in-aid funding for the Arts Council England, so it should rise to £467 million by 2010-11—an increase well above inflation over the three years. I therefore hope it will be appreciated that of course the arts will play an important part of the inheritance that derives from the Games and the cultural legacy.
	We do not intend to sell the arts short. It is also the case, as a number of noble Lords have emphasised—the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Newcastle certainly did so—that it is important that communities become engaged constructively. A great deal of what will be achieved across the nation and presented both to the tourist and to the British visitor moving around the country will be the product not of central government stimulus—not all of it will come from central allocations from Lottery funds and the Arts Council—but because people are stimulated to play their part in a great opportunity for the nation in the cultural field as well as the sporting one.
	I bear out the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. She is right that co-ordination between local authorities and boroughs is important and that a masterplan in place. She will recognise that we intend to launch the masterplan fully shortly; it will be a product of the co-ordinating activity that undoubtedly is necessary when so many significant actors are on the scene.
	In that respect, a contrary perspective was put by my noble friend Lady Whitaker that authorities have not always been entirely successful in their relationships with a minority group like the Travellers. I know the strength of her conviction on justice for Travellers and I know the work that she does. I regret that some mistakes have been made—there is no doubt about that—and apologies have been made to the Travellers for one group's allocation to an unsatisfactory site. That was unacceptable. We will certainly be offering the Travellers the opportunity to return to the Olympic Park when the Games are over, if they so choose. We have pretty clear indications that the successful development of other sites in east London at present are proving satisfactory and, therefore, they may choose to stay where they are, rather than return to the Olympic site.
	I am grateful for the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Coe and Lord Moynihan. They are playing very significant parts in the Olympics. Everyone recognises that without the work done at that level, we would not have made such rapid progress thus far. I know that they have been through trials and tribulations; after all, as the noble Lord, Lord Coe, emphasised, it is quite the biggest project that can be conceived of in the area of sport and athletics for many years, if at all. He is to be congratulated in the leadership that he has offered. The priorities are being responded to and they are clearly to the fore.
	We do not have the slightest doubt that we are in position to create the best Olympic Games ever, but we are also in a position to move in a diametrically opposite direction from Sydney. I think the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, made reference to the Sydney experience and the inheritance of the Games being of limited value to much of the city's population, which is certainly true. We are concerned that the legacy will be of benefit to the whole nation. The nation will be stimulated by the Olympic Games, which will be held in London in 2012. We hope we have an excellent performance in the sport and athletics arenas and in the sports that are carried out throughout the country. I make the obvious point that Newcastle Football Club will expect its ground to be used for matches in the Olympic Games tournament.
	It is important that, in addition, the cultural legacy is enhanced as a result of the Games, that the whole of Britain takes possession of the Games and that it is excited about one of the most significant developments that this country has seen for many years. The opportunity is so great in comparison with 1948. The Olympic movement was grateful to the United Kingdom and to London for its efforts in 1948, so shortly after the war and for picking up the Olympic Games at very short notice. Those Games operated under some pretty dire privations with limited ambitions but these Games have the greatest ambitions. It is the intention of the Government that those ambitions should be fulfilled.

Lord Mawson: My Lords, with an eye on the clock, I thank the Minister for his very helpful comments and for the way in which he has responded to the debate. We need to keep the dialogue going. There is not time now to take further the points that he makes, but I will be happy to host a visit to the Bromley-by-Bow Centre for him and other noble Lords who are interested and to show you what the issues look like from the inside of a housing estate a few hundred yards from the Olympic site. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Coe and Lord Moynihan, for their contributions. I am very confident that they will ensure that we return with a very large bag of medals and that the sporting event will be run extremely well. I thank my noble friend Lady D'Souza for helping me to prepare for the debate.
	I also thank all noble Lords who have taken part in what has been a far-reaching and, I hope, helpful debate. In the coming months and years, I shall try to keep these concerns before the House and update of the House on progress. My purpose in raising these issues is to attempt to give a view from the inside of the East End of London into what some of these complex issues look like on the ground and to share with your Lordships' House the opportunities that now exist to help us all to learn the lessons of the Dome and other regeneration projects that have not delivered the added value that we had hoped. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young, that the key is to bring together the macro-responsibilities of the public sector with the detailed micro-understanding of business and social entrepreneurs who are now delivering sustainable projects on the ground in the area.
	The debate has enabled me to show your Lordships' House the work of social entrepreneurs which is still too little understood but which has important national and international implications for how we regenerate some of our poorest communities. I hope that we have all found this a helpful debate. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

British Council: Russia

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, on the Russian Government's actions against the British Council in Russia. The Statement is as follows:
	"The House will recall that, in October 2007, the Russian Government threatened to close down the British Council's operations outside Moscow from 1 January 2008. This was confirmed on 12 December and then again last week with the threat of a series of administrative measures against the British Council, including tax measures in St Petersburg and visa restrictions against British Council staff in St Petersburg and Ekaterinburg. The Russians also threatened to take measures against the British Council in Moscow, up to and including the removal of accreditation of British Council staff working in Russia. "On Tuesday, the Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser held what we believed were productive talks in Moscow about a range of international and bilateral issues, including the British Council. Yet on the same day the Russian Government exerted further pressure on the British Council. The Russian security services summoned over 20 locally engaged members of British Council staff in St Petersburg and Ekaterinburg one by one for interviews. Ten members of staff were interviewed late at night in their homes after calls by the Russian tax police. Questioning ranged from the institutional status of the British Council to personal questions about the health and welfare of family pets. These Russian citizens have chosen to offer their skills and hard work to promote cultural contact between the people of Russia and the UK. As a result, they have been the subject of blatant intimidation from their own Government. "I think the whole House will agree that such actions are reprehensible, not worthy of a great country, and contrary to the letter and spirit of the legal framework under which the British Council operates, notably international law, including the Vienna conventions, and the UK/Russia 1994 bilateral agreement on cultural co-operation which Russia has ratified. Russia has failed to show any legal reasons under Russian or international law why the British Council should not continue to operate. Russia has also failed to substantiate its claims that the British Council is avoiding paying tax. The British Council is in fact registered for tax in Russia and has complied with all requests of the tax authorities in respect of its activities. Therefore, instead of taking legal action against the council, they have resorted to intimidation of the council's staff. I am confident that the whole House will share the Government's anger and dismay at the actions of the Russian Government. We saw similar actions during the Cold War but thought they had been put behind us. "The British Council's first priority is, rightly, the safety of its staff. Yet the actions of the Russian Government have made it impossible for staff to go about their business in a normal way. British Council offices in Ekaterinburg and St Petersburg have been prevented from operating, and therefore the British Council has taken the decision to suspend their operations in those two cities. The council is making an announcement to this effect as I speak. The staff concerned will continue to be supported while the Council considers its next steps. "There has already been strong international condemnation of Russian actions. Following my conversation last night with the Slovenian Foreign Minister in his capacity as presidency of the EU, he agreed to issue a statement today on behalf of all European governments. The US Government have issued a statement of support calling for the British Council to be able to continue its good work in Russia. The Canadian Government are expressing their concerns in Moscow about developments. I am grateful also for the many expressions of support the British Council has received from Russians who have benefited from working with the British Council. "Mr Speaker, the Russian Foreign Minister stated publicly on 12 December what the Russian Government had been saying to us in private; namely, that attacks on the British Council were linked to the Litvinenko issue. I announced on 16 July to this House a list of measures the Government had decided to adopt in response to Russia's failure to co-operate with our efforts to secure justice for Alexander Litvinenko. These included introducing visa restrictions for Russian officials travelling to the UK and suspending our visa consultations. The House can rest assured, Mr Speaker, that these measures will continue to be administered rigorously. "But we regard as entirely separate issues Mr Litvinenko's murder and the activities of the British Council to build up links between British and Russian schools and universities, to support English language teaching in Russia and Russian studies in the UK, and to promote the best of British drama, writing, music, and art. Nor do we believe that cultural activities should become a political football; in fact, educational and cultural activities are important ways of bringing people together. That is why I have decided not to take similar action against Russia's cultural activities in the UK, for example by sending back Russian masterpieces scheduled for show at the Royal Academy, or by taking measures against the two Russian diplomats at the Russian Embassy dedicated to cultural work. We have nothing to fear from these contacts; we welcome and encourage them. The immediate cost to the Russian people of the Russian Government's actions is their access to the benefits of British Council activity. The longer term cost is their country's standing in the world as a responsible international player. The British Council will continue its work in Moscow, meeting the demand from as many as possible of the 1.25 million Russian citizens who used the council's services nationwide last year. "Mr Speaker, the council's experience in Russia is not repeated in any of the more than 100 British Council operations elsewhere in the world. Russia's actions therefore raise serious questions about her observance of international law, as well as about the standards of behaviour she is prepared to adopt towards her own citizens. This can only make the international community more cautious in its dealings with Russia in international negotiations and more doubtful about its existing international commitments. "Russia remains an important international player in addressing key global issues and challenges, including climate change and energy security, as well as others, such as Iran and Kosovo. But I hope the whole House will agree with me that Russia's actions against the British Council are a stain on Russia's reputation and standing that will have been noted by countries all around the world. I will continue to keep the House informed of developments".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, we are all extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. We welcome it; it seems robust and measured. Nothing is to be gained by tit-for-tat reactions and threats or by claiming that one measure is "the logical consequence" of another, as the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Lavrov, has been doing. This is childish and not the language of a great nation on the international stage.
	It is impossible not to see a pattern of diplomatic ineptitude in this whole situation. Someone once said that the job of diplomats and foreign ministries was to prevent second-class matters becoming first-class rows. Here we have a string of undoubtedly serious but not strategic issues, starting with the Litvinenko-Lugovoi affair, which have somehow been allowed to coalesce into a situation with real bad blood when they should have been kept apart.
	There cannot be, nor ought there to be, a conceivable connection between the need to track down the perpetrators of the Litvinenko crime and the hassling and harassment of British Council staff. The Russians claim, and their ambassador was saying the same only yesterday, that they "understand" the British position. They do not. Perhaps more might have been done to get over to them the true position both on this matter and on other areas of difference, such as in the Balkans and matters of missile defence. A better job could have been done.
	The central point is that the British Council is not an instrument of British government policy and purposes—sometimes around the world it seems to be doing quite the opposite. Moscow has not grasped the concepts of the separation of powers and of truly independent agencies, which are complex and subtle. They ought to latch on to these ideas now because it seems that their own agencies have highly separate agendas. As the Minister has described, that is the only way one can make sense of the fact that, while the Moscow Foreign Ministry is having supposedly helpful and reassuring talks with UK officials, the Russian security bosses are harassing British Council workers and clients, visiting them in their homes in the night and generally acting like Soviet heavies from central casting.
	There has been a lot of talk about the British Council's legal position and I would like to ask the noble Baroness some questions about that. Is the 1994 agreement between our two countries on co-operation in education, science and culture legally binding? It specifically encourages close cultural ties and mentions in Article 14 the necessary role of the British Council in carrying forward these purposes. If it was legal last year, why is not legal this year?
	Russian Foreign Ministry officials have made much of the fact that cultural organisations from other countries, including France and Germany, are, they say, complying with Russian law as non-governmental organisations and operating without difficulties. Could we know under what conditions they are operating, and why and how they differ from the arrangements with the British Council? Russian officials have also been quoted as saying that the British Council's Moscow offices could be targeted next if no agreement on the status of cultural organisations and the availability of British visas for Russian diplomats were reached. Can she confirm whether Russia has sought a new agreement on the status of cultural organisations if it does not like the present one? Have any other British institutions been subjected to similar pressures?
	We insist on being friendly towards the Russian people. They are a nation that has been through harrowing times in the 20th century and with which we stood shoulder to shoulder against attack in the past. For centuries we have been linked by trade and commerce, and today we are Russia's largest foreign investor. Our arts and literature are deeply interwoven and have been all along. From the time of Peter the Great, who spent time working in a British shipyard, the British have been Russia's best friends in the West.
	For the Russian authorities to act now in this way is not only—in that overworked diplomatic word—unacceptable, but it makes a leading nation like Russia look ridiculous and makes everyone else a lot more cautious in their dealings with Russia. How crazy, for instance, it would be for us to be dragged into trans-European networks for daily gas supplies relying on Russian suppliers. That would be the reaction of many people.
	Far from bickering, we should be working more closely than ever with Russia on the great global and strategic issues in eastern and central Asia, in controlling nuclear proliferation, in the Middle East, and on environmental and energy issues. All those are directly in the Russian interest.
	I hope that today's Statement, and the sensible decision not to retaliate further against Russian cultural activities here, which we welcome, can mark a return to mature co-operation on all these future challenges between our two nations.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I was one of a group of Members of this House who visited Moscow last February and spoke to staff at the British embassy and British Council about the range of petty harassment that they were both suffering. My wife and I also informally visited the British Council in St Petersburg last April—Stephen Kinnock is a former student of my wife—and learnt something about the petty harassments which were already under way there. Therefore, we appreciate that this situation has not come out of the blue at all; it is a ratcheting up of pressures. We on these Benches approve strongly of the Government's moderate response and their attempt to ensure that it is co-ordinated, first, with those of our partners in the European Union and then more widely with those of other members of the civilised community.
	One of my strongest impressions following our week in Moscow last February was that the Russian interpretation of "sovereign democracy" is that, now that Russia has re-established itself after the humiliations of the 1990s, it be allowed to behave like a great power. There is an unfortunate interpretation of the way in which the Bush Administration behave as a great power, which is to say, "Great superpowers are above international law. We don't have to obey the same rules as everyone else". That is very much the way in which the current Russian Government interpret their position. Therefore, we have to insist that international law operates and that, if Russia wants to be considered a civilised and responsible member of the international community, it must also apply the rule of law domestically.
	As I understand it, the accusation of illegality which is being brought against the British Council has not been made specific, and therefore part of our problem in responding is that we do not entirely know what illegal activities we are supposed to have been undertaking. That is absurd, and we clearly have to take this as a general problem for the international community and respond in that way. This seems to be a situation in which a co-ordinated European response is particularly appropriate, because the Russian Government are attempting to pick off European Governments one by one—Poland on some issues; Germany on others, and so on—in order to reassert their superiority in a number of areas. Solidarity and unity in responding is therefore clearly very important.
	What can be done about the interests of local employees in British Council offices? I understand that several local employees have worked loyally for the British Council for many years, and we have to do our best to look after their interests. I have had conversations with a number of people from Russian universities about how they would like to build closer contacts with British universities. What is the appropriate response to both individual students and Russian institutions which want closer links with British educational institutions to be maintained when the British Council, which has done much to help in that regard, appears to be prevented from doing what we all want it to do—build closer links and pull Russian society and Russian intellectual life closer to our own?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their strong support of the British Government's position on this very difficult situation. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, is absolutely right that we should not engage in tit for tat. That would be demeaning, and there should indeed be no connection between the Litvinenko case and the harassment of British Council staff. I do not think that British diplomats have failed in their work in any way; they have acted absolutely correctly throughout.
	In respect of the British Council's legal position, the 1994 cultural agreement is legally binding. So far as I understand it, the British Council's Moscow offices have not yet been targeted but there have indeed been threats. I understand that Russia has not sought a new status in respect of a cultural agreement or a new agreement for the British Council. The council does not need a new agreement to operate in Russia. However, interestingly, for the past nine years, the UK has been keen to conclude a further cultural centres agreement with Russia. The Russians have not seen fit to co-operate on that yet, but I stress that the council does not need a new agreement, and the 1994 agreement does not stipulate that it does. I am glad to report that I do not believe that any other British organisations have been affected in any way to date.
	The noble Lord is of course right that we should be working more, not less, closely with Russia on a huge range of issues. He mentioned several but the list should also include climate change and trade. I assure noble Lords that the Government will continue to work hard in that respect.
	I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for telling us of his experience over the past two years. That shows that there has been a build-up of tension in relationships between Russians and the British Council. I should also say that Stephen Kinnock is a family friend.
	Russia is a great power, and of course we expect it to stand up for its interests—that is entirely normal—but we do not expect it to damage its interests in the world, which is what it is doing at the moment. The noble Lord is right that the Russians have never made it clear what is illegal or improper about the activities at British Council offices outside Moscow, and therefore it is extremely difficult for us to respond. I agree wholeheartedly that it is important that there is solidarity in the EU over this issue, and I am very pleased that, as I reported in the Statement, the EU has made a strong statement today.
	I am sure that the British Council will do everything that it can to protect the interests of the locally engaged staff in its offices outside Moscow. They must be in the most extraordinarily difficult position. Our hearts go out to them in many ways because they are truly being intimidated. In the 21st century, Russia is our friend and this should not be happening.

Lord Kinnock: My Lords, I am honoured to be the chairman of the British Council and I express to my noble friend our thanks to Her Majesty's Government and to the Diplomatic Service, which has given unstinting support to the council in Russia over many months of unjustified pressure and attempted intimidation by the Russian Government and the state security police.
	I confirm that the British Council has sought to negotiate a new and more comprehensive cultural agreement with Russia for more than eight years and that those negotiations have repeatedly been frustrated by the very authorities that are now claiming that the council does not have appropriate legal status in Russia. I hope that I shall be forgiven for observing that, in such circumstances, Orwell appears to be meeting Godot.
	Will my noble friend emphasise that, while the Russian Government make spurious assertions that council activities outside Moscow are not legal, the real motivation for their antagonism towards the council was revealingly acknowledged by Foreign Minister Lavrov and his deputy, Titov, last month, when they made it publicly clear that the offensive against the council was deliberate retaliation against the United Kingdom for our country's efforts to secure justice for a Russian murdered in London? In the light of that, is it not plain that the view of the international community should be that attacks on a widely respected cultural and educational organisation for crude political purposes are absolutely indefensible?
	Is it not clear that, while we are told that today's Russia prides itself on its strength and sophistication, the systematic bullying of talented, decent, loyal Russian citizens who are employed by the British Council manifests the complete opposite of those qualities? Will my noble friend work to ensure that Her Majesty's Government continue to insist on the truth that the British Council in Russia is legal, law-abiding and greatly valued by more than 1 million Russian citizens who use the opportunities and facilities of the council for their own cultural and creative benefit and to foster understanding between our two countries and cultures?
	Finally, in recognising that, will my noble friend also acknowledge that the interests of those people will continue to justify the presence of the British Council in Russia? Above all, will she acknowledge that those enlightened purposes of culture and creativity will always outlast any regime which uses its power to diminish the human rights to expression and fulfilment?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend for his excellent work as chair of the British Council, and to the British Council itself. I also offer him the friendship of the whole House, because he must be extremely worried about his son, Stephen, who is working for the British Council.
	Of course the British Government agree with my noble friend that the real reason for the actions of the Russian state—it is the Russian state—against the British Council is not to do with the legality of the British Council but more to do with the Litvinenko case. The Russians have made that connection very clear. We have been trying to keep those matters apart; they made it very clear that they are linked.
	My noble friend is absolutely correct when he says that systematic bullying is not acceptable in any part of the world; it is certainly not acceptable in part of Europe which calls itself a democracy these days—they have elections. That is simply not acceptable. The British Council is legal, it is law-abiding and it is warmly welcomed by so many more than the 1.25 million citizens in Russia who have availed themselves of its services. It is widely recognised not only in Russia but throughout the world.
	Yes, it is in the interests of the people whom the British Council serves that it should remain in Russia. Of course, culture and creativity must always outlast any regime. Culture and creativity are at the basis of our civilisation.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that it is a pretty sad manifestation of this newly assertive Russian foreign policy that it is being practised at the expense of Russia's own defenceless citizens by unleashing the secret police on them in a manner that is rather reminiscent of the previous century and not this one? Does she not also agree that the whole issue of European solidarity—I welcome very much the statement by the presidency supporting our position—is rather capital to all this?
	The European Union is pursuing, as one of the four areas of co-operation with Russia, cultural co-operation. Surely the Minister agrees that this action completely contradicts the objectives of that cultural co-operation. It needs to be made clear to Russia that that is so. When a sub-committee of your Lordships' House was in Moscow shortly before Christmas, we were told blandly by a Deputy Foreign Minister that they were strongly in favour of cultural co-operation with Europe, but that the matter of the British Council was a bilateral matter. He could not have more clearly signalled the divide and rule, the pick and choose, of Russian policy. It really is important that European solidarity should not just be announced on the day after this event but should be sustained. I should be grateful to hear from the Minister how we can best proceed in that way.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, the noble Lord is correct to say that this is a sad manifestation of Russian foreign policy. Frankly, we would have expected better of them on this issue. Yes, the EU is pursuing co-operation with Russia, including cultural co-operation, and we will continue to do that, because it is with culture that we can best foster friendships and understanding between the peoples of Russia and the European Union. So we must continue to do that, but, as we do so, I am confident that the European Union will stand with us, that there will be solidarity and that we will make our views known to the Russians. We do not want to damage the relationship that we have with the Russian people or in any way diminish the cultural friendship that we have with Russia and the Russian people.

Lord Chidgey: My Lords, I acknowledge to your Lordships' House that I, too, had the opportunity to visit Moscow both this year and last year on parliamentary business with my noble friends Lord Wallace and Lord Roper, so I can endorse and reinforce the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Wallace.
	Let me say how important this is. In a way, we are seeing the pattern of bilateral arrangements made with Russia by other member states of the EU on energy supply and so forth spinning over into the wider diplomatic arena. It is so important that we work together in solidarity with the EU and not allow this country or any other to be isolated in the way in which we deal with Russia.
	Most importantly, can the Minister reinforce for us how far the Government have been able to go in the international field to ensure that it is not just the EU that is making its voice heard in those arenas but the international diplomatic community as well?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, the European Union is currently trying to negotiate a partnership and co-operation agreement with Russia. If we had succeeded in making that agreement before now, it might have been far more difficult for Russia to have picked off the British Council in this way, if I may say so.
	In terms of the rest of the world, we have today seen a statement from both the Americans and the Canadians. That is terribly important because, as the noble Lord said, this is not just a European issue—the whole world should be alarmed about the situation.

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: My Lords—

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords—

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, it is time to hear from the Conservative Benches.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I am sure that I am not the only member of your Lordships' House whose memory goes as far back as 1944. I recollect the energy and enthusiasm with which my mother, in particular, set about managing events for Anglo-Soviet friendship. I remember seeing on display the Stalingrad sword in Winchester Cathedral as a tribute by our people to the courage of the Russian people. I can compare those days of partnership with the subsequent years, 40 years later. On my first visit to the Soviet Union, I tried to raise with Andrei Gromyko, the then Foreign Minister, some questions of human rights. He displayed the tone of the Russian Government at that time by saying bluntly that I was lowering the tone of our conversation by daring to mention such things.
	Since then, there has been a transformation, as we thought, as Russia became a member of the Council of Europe and has begun to take a sensible part in many international affairs. I see this event as a symptom of recidivism, which will do nothing but damage not just to our relations with Russia but to Russia's relations with the world. The noble Baroness can be confident of support from the whole House, I am sure, for the firm, robust way in which this issue is being tackled. The tragedy deserves to be reversed.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that strong support and merely say that, in relation to this situation, I hope that he will continue to lower the tone.

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: My Lords, I join others in expressing horror at what has happened recently in Russia. I was for six years the chair of the British Council, from 1998 to 2004. It was one of the most precious periods of my life because I met such remarkable people working with the British Council—its employees from Britain and people from the countries with which we were working. I visited Russia and saw the extraordinary work that was taking place there and the relationships that had been built up. I also met the very special people, Russian people, who worked for the British Council. A lot of the work was around education. Much of that work, rather than directly teaching English to people who so keenly wanted to learn it, was with teachers about the pedagogy of teaching. It was wonderful to meet Ministers and to hear of the great warmth for the work that Britain was doing with Russia.
	I know that there is a misunderstanding in all of this. There is a failure, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, said, to understand the real separation of powers, and that the British Council is independent and at arm's length from government. That is understood in other parts of the world. One of the things that was so interesting to see was that, whatever the relationships at government level between countries, it was always business as usual for the British Council. Work carried on, even when there were tensions and strains between different nations and Britain. That is the special thing that the British Council can do. It should be recognised by the Russian Government. It is with sadness that we hear of this kind of response—a failure to understand that cultural relationships must be maintained—because it is from such relationships that good international relations can ultimately be made.
	I want to reinforce the course that has been taken by Government. It is important not to enter into a tit-for-tat exchange, but I hope that this House will join in sending support and good wishes to the staff in Russia. I know from my own work that the morale will be very low because people will feel so undermined. It is very important that messages of support are sent from this House and this nation to those who work on our behalf.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, on behalf of the Government, I am of course delighted to send good wishes and our strongest support to the staff of the British Council in Russia. I am also grateful to my noble friend for stressing the independence of the British Council. It is extraordinary that ghastly regimes such as that Burma, with which we quite rightly have a very difficult relationship, still accept the British Council because they recognise that it is independent and does a fine job.
	I want quickly to respond to a point by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, to which I omitted to respond, about university students and the importance of the British Council. We trust that university students, or potential university students, will continue to work with and through the British Council in Moscow and that they will avail themselves of the online facilities of the British Council.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister on her most restrained, dignified and measured reaction to this matter. Indeed, that has been the reaction of everyone in this House. Clearly there appears to be a direct causal connection between the request to extradite Lugovoi in relation to the Litvinenko affair and the campaign of attrition that followed. Will the Minister tell the House whether, prior to that request for extradition, there was ever a breath of a suggestion about the validity of the 1994 cultural agreement?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, as far as I am aware there was no such suggestion. However, it is certainly something I will follow up. I will respond to the noble Lord in writing.

Lord Dykes: My Lords, perhaps I, too, may briefly add my words of indignation to what has been said, and thank the Minister very much for repeating the very helpful Statement. The Statement was rightly described by the Conservative spokesman as robust and measured and it has elicited a lot of sympathy in the House. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, by referring to our long-standing friendship since we made our maiden speeches in the other place. I would like to pay tribute to the work he has done as chairman of the British Council in its present state all over the world. It is going through a very strong phase. Those of us who regularly visit all the various countries, as many Members here and in the other place do, are deeply moved by the council's success, its education of students and all its other work.
	The Minister referred to the Slovenian efforts, for which we are all grateful, on behalf of the whole European Union, and that is logically the main channel. Are there indications—I am not offending the small countries I hope—that any of the leading members in the central core of the European Union—Germany, France, Italy, Spain and so forth—are perhaps adding their own voices bilaterally as that would also be helpful? After all, if this situation developed elsewhere, you would have the equivalent of the British Council in other foreign countries also coming under strain.
	Finally, the Minister referred strongly to the very distressing harassment of Russian British Council employees and what has been happening, and we thank her for that. Are there indications in the Russian press that journalists are coming under pressure as a result of writing about this? There may not be any mention of it in the Russian press, other than that which the Russian Government give out officially.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I regret that I have no information about what is happening in the Russian press and whether Russian journalists are being affected. I very much hope they are not, but I suspect that they might be in the current climate. As for other member states in the European Union, I have no knowledge whether Germany and France, for example, have made statements or taken action, but I am entirely sure that they will be reflecting on it if they have not done so already.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am glad that we are going to send a message of support not only to those who are still in Moscow but to those in Ekaterinburg, particularly the locally engaged staff who will be rather fearful about the visits that they have had. I too am very glad that we are not going to retaliate or descend to the rather paltry level of the actions taken against the British Council. However, I hope that we will not thereby be misread and that there is no hesitation in expressing our indignation about what has happened or our united conviction that this action is unjustified and indefensible. To that end, have we called in the Russian ambassador? If so, can my noble friend tell us about that exchange?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for again mentioning not only the priority we must put on the safety and security of British Council staff but the concern we must have for the safety and security of locally engaged staff. The fact that the British Council has today decided to suspend its operations outside Moscow shows its deep concern and that it wants to protect its entire staff. On the indignation that we must express to the Russians, the head of the Foreign Office called in the Russian ambassador yesterday and he made very clear our indignation and outrage about what has happened vis-à-vis the British Council. I am sure that he will also have told the Russians that not just Britain but the whole world does not understand what they are doing vis-à-vis the British Council.

Health: Musculoskeletal Disorders

Lord Harris of Haringey: rose to call attention to the Work Foundation report Fit for Work? Musculoskeletal Disorders and Labour Market Participation and the case for a concerted approach to reduce the social, economic and work impact of musculoskeletal disorders; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I am pleased to have secured this debate today and I welcome those noble Lords who have come to speak about the issues raised in the Work Foundation report, Fit for Work? Musculoskeletal Disorders and Labour Market Participation. This report, published last September with the support of a grant from Abbott Laboratories, highlights a topic of great importance and one of serious concern to many millions of people in this country. I say millions advisedly. More than 2.5 million people in the UK visit their GP with back pain each year. At any one time, a third of the population is suffering with back problems, and it is estimated that up to 80 per cent of the adult population will suffer significant back pain at some time in their life. What is more, in the vast majority of cases there will be no specific diagnosis. Those who have suffered from back pain know how debilitating it can be. It affects mobility, it affects agility, and the strains produced diminish stamina. The pain affects concentration, the ability to think and rationality, and it necessarily affects the sufferer's mood. It may make them irritable and can lead to severe depression.
	There has been much debate about the impact of mental health conditions and the associated stigma and difficulties that can lead to people losing their jobs. Amid the concern about the psychological well-being of the UK workforce, those with physical problems have often seemed to have received less attention. The number of working days lost to psychological problems or stress is, of course, high. However, as the Work Foundation report points out, almost twice as many workers are affected by musculoskeletal disorders such as back pain, arm or neck strains, or diseases of the joints. Back pain and similar problems affected over 1 million people in 2005-06 and, according to the Health and Safety Executive, were responsible for 9.5 million lost working days, at a cost to society, in 2007 prices, of over £7 billion.
	What happens when these people visit their GPs with a complaint? All too often, out of compassion and concern for their patient, the GP will issue a sick note advising that they take time off work. They may be advised to stay at home for weeks or months while they wait for tests and then treatments to make them feel well again. For those of us who fall ill with flu or minor infections and spend a week in bed, this probably sounds like common sense. However, for many people with long-term acute conditions, it may not always be the right approach. As the report says:
	"Work can be both cause and cure".
	The physical conditions of work may indeed have caused or aggravated a musculoskeletal condition but, equally, prolonged inactivity may well make the condition worse. Moreover, absence from the work environment and the associated isolation may worsen the depression associated with the pain and make recovery less likely. Certainly, many GPs and employers mistakenly believe that sufferers from musculoskeletal disorders must be 100 per cent well before any return to work can be contemplated.
	Some employer surveys suggest that back pain and other musculoskeletal problems account for as much as two-thirds of long-term sickness absence. The Department of Health estimates that almost a quarter of the more than 2.6 million people of working age claiming incapacity benefit suffer from these problems. Surveys of people affected suggest that thousands of people in this country want to work and think that they are capable of work but are instead stranded on incapacity benefit. One survey undertaken by the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, aptly titled the I Want to Work survey, tells how people with rheumatoid arthritis desperately want to keep working but encounter a raft of barriers. The most commonly cited barriers are the inability to get fast access to their rheumatologist and the attitude taken by employers once they learn that an employee has a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Nearly 400,000 people in the UK have rheumatoid arthritis and 12,000 new cases are reported each year. Unlike other forms of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis affects people of all ages, hitting people in their 20s or 30s at the early stages of their careers. Almost a quarter of those with the disease stop working within five years of the diagnosis, at a cost to the taxpayer of £89 million a year.
	With an ageing population comes the increasing prevalence of a host of chronic conditions and an increasing number of people who do not want to be written off. They want to be independent and economically active. We have to address the barriers to their participating in the labour force if we are to have a sustainable future economy. The Work Foundation report considers the interrelationship between improving health outcomes and improving work outcomes. It suggests that perhaps if employers were more educated about their employees' conditions and flexible over adapting tasks, and if the NHS was better geared towards helping people stay in work, we could both reduce public spending and better support people with musculoskeletal conditions who want to work but find it impossibly difficult.
	The report suggests that changes in the attitudes of both healthcare professionals and employers are needed to help people with MSDs to stay in work. Not only does each need to think in terms of how to support people in their jobs; they also need to think about how to collaborate better. GPs, rheumatologists, nurses and employers should talk to each other about the support that their patients or employees need and how to work round the illness, rather than letting the illness itself dominate.
	Some employers, of course, are enlightened. I am an adviser to the board of Transport for London. TfL and its predecessors have long had extremely progressive policies on staff welfare—that is, despite what you may have heard from the RMT trade union. Its occupational health service has undertaken a programme to address back pain. There has been an in-house physiotherapy service for lower back pain since 2001. Attractive educational materials including a CD-ROM with amusing video clips and job-dependent exercises for staff were developed and widely distributed in 2005-06. They are now provided internally in some types of training. A back exercise class was introduced to augment one-to-one physiotherapy for back pain and is focused on maintaining and improving back fitness and flexibility.
	A two-hour class in pain physiology is an entry requirement into this exercise class and employees learn complex concepts about it with remarkable ease. Each exercise class includes some educational content and the employee who attends all 10 classes will learn about anatomy, soft-tissue healing, how to stand, how to lift, how to adjust your chair and so on. The classes are run three times a week at different times to allow employees to attend without interfering with their shifts. Employees are encouraged to continue to attend once their back pain has been relieved, if they would like to, in order to keep up the level of back fitness that they have achieved. One big change in approach is the relatively new expectation that employees attend such classes in their own time if they are not off sick. TfL is moving from a paternalistic approach to a partnership approach with employees. The responsibility for an individual's health remains with that individual and all the work of the occupational health team supports that basic reality. Further work has been undertaken to develop a lower-limb exercise class, primarily for those with knee or ankle problems. This was introduced in 2007 and has proved enormously popular. Evaluation of the impact of this class will begin soon.
	The analysis that has been done so far on the effectiveness of these TfL services, in particular the ones on lower back pain, is relevant to today's debate: A pilot study carried out in 2001 demonstrated that employees who received physiotherapy intervention returned to work 12.6 days sooner than would be predicted using historical data when employees did not have access to a physiotherapy service. A more recent study, in 2003-04, found that employees who were referred to the back pain service after more than six weeks' absence had twice the length of absence of those referred within six weeks and four times the length of absence of those referred within two weeks. Thus early referral for physiotherapy can be seen to have significantly reduced further time off. Sitting at home waiting for the problem to resolve just prolonged the amount of time that people took off work. Moreover only 13 per cent of employees referred to the lower back pain service in September to December 2005 for first-episode lower back pain had a recurrent episode leading to absence during the following year; and only 23 per cent of employees with a previous history of lower back pain had a recurrent episode leading to absence during the following year. This compares favourably with recurrence rates of 26 to 37 per cent reported in research. This confirms so many of the conclusions of the Work Foundation report.
	Let me just say a few further words about the importance of early intervention. It is now widely acknowledged that early intervention is essential to support people with musculoskeletal diseases to continue with their jobs. For many, as the TfL work has shown, fast access to physiotherapy can make a huge difference, while early access to drug therapies for those with progressive illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis can slow or even halt the progression of their condition. Delay in getting the right diagnosis or treatment therefore increases the probability of the person losing their job or prolonging their absence from work.
	The Government recognise that in their Health, Work and Well-being Strategy, and we have the welcome appointment of Dame Carol Black as national clinical director for health and work. But the aspiration of an NHS geared to support people in work and flexible working for those who need it is far from the reality. The Fit for Work? report tells us of long waiting times for care, certain employers' lack of capacity to deal with sickness, lack of employee awareness about conditions and their management, and mixed messages on the effectiveness of various methods of workplace interventions or return-to-work programmes, all of which are barriers to making good and healthy work a reality for those suffering from MSDs. It goes on to advise that:
	"Early action, preferably in partnership between GPs, the patient and their employer, can help achieve a balance between the individual's need for respite and their need to work.
	As many of these conditions cause a decline in functional capabilities over time, early detection and the targeted treatment of specific diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis are crucial in enabling a patient to manage their condition and improve their quality of life. It is clearly essential that this message permeates through the NHS and I look forward to hearing from my noble friend the Minister about what steps are being taken to make sure that this happens.
	Of course, bringing savings to the budget of the Department for Work and Pensions is not something that the Department of Health is formally tasked with bringing about, but joint working on this issue is essential. The Work Foundation report makes 27 recommendations in all, some aimed at employers, some at employees, and others for GPs and other occupational health professionals. It is not possible to go through all of those in my remaining time but I would like to highlight one that is specifically targeted at the Government, and again I wait with interest to hear my noble friend's response to the point. It concerns changes to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The Work Foundation makes a strong case for a change to the statutory instruments governing NICE to allow the institute to take appropriate account of the benefits of full and active labour market participation when assessing the cost-effectiveness of treatments. This recommendation could not be more timely. Last week's Health Select Committee report on NICE recommended that wider benefits and costs, such as the costs borne by carers and social care services, be more fully incorporated into NICE's assessments. Surely work costs and benefits should also be considered when NICE issues guidance and advice to the NHS.
	As noble Lords will know, NICE evaluations of treatment currently concentrate only on assessing the clinical costs and benefits—that is, those borne by the NHS. It is currently beyond NICE's statutory remit to consider the wider consequences of keeping more employees in the labour market, so the recommendation is not critical of the institute, which indeed conducts a range of important and helpful work, but rather suggests that its terms of reference and working methods need to be updated. If the Treasury was able to consider the fuller economic impact of MSDs it might be more inclined to support further joint working and partnership between the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions to train and motivate the professionals working in these spheres.
	The Department of Health already acknowledges in its Musculoskeletal Services Framework issued in July 2006 that the year-on-year costs of anti-TNF drugs which are used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and other MSDs are likely to be offset by keeping patients with rheumatoid arthritis at work and reducing the need for them to claim incapacity benefit. Indeed, it was the Prevention of Work Disability Study commissioned by Abbott and presented to the American College of Rheumatology in November 2006, which showed how anti-TNFs can help to keep people in work, that gave rise to the report we are discussing today. However, these costs and benefits are not taken into account by NICE. As the report points out:
	"Economically efficient guidance on drug therapies may protect the NHS budget, but can put extra strain on [the budget] of the DWP".
	Since NHS policy and practice can impact on a patient's ability to return to or remain in work, health policy makers need increasingly to take into account the broader work-related benefits of treatments as well as their more traditional clinical benefits. Employers need to engage with the NHS and avoid adopting a risk-management approach of easing people out of their jobs just because they have a long-term health condition. With the right support, thousands more can thrive in the workplace, contribute to society and enjoy the benefits of work.
	This is, of course, a plea for that clichéd holy grail: joined-up policy making. Like any grail quest, there are many obstacles in the way, but the natural overlap in the issues we are discussing today between the policy areas of health and work offers the potential for success. Some 2.5 million sufferers, at an annual cost to society of £7 billion, are reason enough for overcoming the obstacles. I hope that this short debate will send a powerful message to my right honourable friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretaries of State of Health and for Work and Pensions to sort these problems out, so that we invest to save—invest in the health of those 2.5 million sufferers so as to save on the costs of maintaining them on incapacity benefit. That is already, in principle at least, government policy. I call on my right honourable friends to support patients with back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders to enable them to continue in the workplace—a greater priority as they look to tackle public finances. I beg to move for Papers.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has done the House a great service in bringing this matter before us today. His spirited and detailed speech means that we do not need to go into much detail. Almost everything in the report has been covered in one way or another. I must say that I found his account of the situation and his ability to express the interrelationship between the various points made in the report and the recommendations to the Government particularly interesting.
	I was drawn to making a brief contribution to today's debate because, ever since working for the National Economic Development Office in the 1970s, I have been interested in matters which affect employment and management. This was partly because I could see a connection with the EU Select Committee report on the effect of mental ill health and stress on employment, and because this report covers certain matters which affect women in a particular way. As the noble Lord has explained, the thesis of the report is straightforward. The incidence of musculoskeletal disorders within the workforce is large and increasing, imposing severe costs in terms of lost output, treatment costs, the non-earning of pensions, on businesses, the NHS, affected individuals and the economy in general. Indeed, the report maintains that these conditions are now more common and impose greater costs than does mental illness, which we considered in the EU report.
	The report suggests that the way this problem is tackled by employers, doctors and to some extent by sufferers themselves is not as effective as it could be, with the result that some employees are either persuaded to, or feel they must, leave employment altogether. Not only does this mean that they have no resources on which to live during their working years, they also do not earn themselves a pension. The effect on employees' personal well-being in later life and the costs to the state of supporting people who have not earned a pension are likely to grow in parallel with the growth in the percentage of the population that is over the age of 65, like quite a few of us in your Lordships' House.
	The report considers a number of ways of improving the response of doctors, employees and employers to the problems of joint pains, back-ache and other more serious disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and makes two interesting points in this context. First, that the advice of doctors that sufferers should take time off work is not always helpful, and secondly, that the tendency of employers to persuade employees to leave their employment compounds the problem. The report also points out that:
	"Work is, unambiguously, good for our health".
	Unfortunately, it seems that once affected workers have left their job for any length of time they may, as a result of a combination of circumstances, never return to work again. The report suggests a number of ways of tackling these problems and I look forward to the Minister's responses to the points put to her by the noble Lord in his opening speech.
	I would particularly like to ask the Minister about the kind of help that should be given to small and medium-sized enterprises in tackling the interrelated problems of modifying working conditions so as to enable workers to continue in work, and thus avoid the cost of recruiting and training new employees, while at the same time maintaining output. Such companies are likely to feel themselves overburdened by regulation and paperwork—a cry of pain frequently heard while I chaired Sub-Committee G. Would the Minister consider a scheme that would bring the managers of SMEs together at the local level, possibly through chambers of commerce, for training and the exchange of effective information, including health advice, about what actually works in practice? The learning process might be started at that level with greater ease than in other ways.
	A particular concern highlighted by the report is the double burden carried by women who are caring for children and/or elderly relatives as well as working. As the number of women in the workforce increases, women are particularly likely to be exposed to the risk factors associated with the conflict between work and care roles. Does the Minister consider that employers are sufficiently alert to the damage that can be done to women, as to men, by very repetitious work—for example, at the keyboard—to which they are often assigned? If so, would better training and informing of managers help to improve the situation?
	Women are already less likely to earn a full pension than are men because of the demands of family life, although the new pensions provisions may improve that situation. Can the Minister tell the House if this new provision is likely to assist women to have a better chance of continuous long-term employment and the security in old age that goes with it?
	I look forward to hearing the remainder of the debate. The report is very interesting and apposite, but the benefits of its insights into the interaction of musculoskeletal disorders and the well being of workers, businesses and the economy at large will not have their due effect unless the Government take steps to put at least some of the recommendations within it into effect. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for introducing the debate on the impact of musculoskeletal disorders. This subject needs bringing to the notice of many people in the hope that improvements will be made in the many parts of the country which are not giving priority to the treatment and rehabilitation of long-term conditions such as the ones we are discussing today.
	For many years this has been the case. When I was a member on the Regional Health Authority of Yorkshire, I used to look down the agenda for the next 10 years and find that physical disability was not even mentioned. I should like to go back into history for a moment. Years ago, when I came to live in Yorkshire after I got married and I was campaigning for better facilities for disabled people, I was contacted by a young woman from Bradford who had rheumatoid arthritis. This was my first introduction to RA. I went to visit Theresa in Bradford. She was living in a tiny, one-room bed-sit in a terraced house, with the kitchen in a cupboard and, I suppose, the lavatory in another cupboard. She shared this cramped room with her elderly mother. This disabled young woman used a wheelchair; there were a few steps to enter the room. She had difficulty in eating because of a stiff jaw—she had a similar problem with the rest of her body. Even with all these difficulties, her spirit was wonderful.
	A little time after my visit, Theresa contacted me to say that her mother had had a stroke in the early hours of the morning and had fallen half out of bed. Theresa could do nothing until the paperboy passed her window at about 7 am. She attracted his attention by knocking on the window with her long-handled fork, which she used for eating. He went to get her sister, who lived in the same street a few houses down. It is this which made me think that there should be better treatment and facilities for such cases and which made me move an amendment to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 that disabled people at risk should have a telephone and be able to make contact to get help.
	The report your Lordships are discussing today was produced by the Work Foundation, with a grant from Abbott. It links in very well with the book Women's Insight into Rheumatoid Arthritis, which was produced two years ago in collaboration with the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society and Arthritis Care, with sponsorship, again, by Abbott. Ten Members of the Parliaments, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, and myself, were very pleased to take part in interviewing 10 women with RA. These were all people who had managed to get their lives together with the correct treatment and drugs and to go on living and working with the care they needed. I congratulate the two voluntary organisations, the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society and Arthritis Care, on the support and information it gave its members. They helped them to focus on the positive, not the negative, and to come to terms with the condition. They give back lost confidence and experience, which helps many people to get back into paid employment.
	I enjoyed meeting Carrie and interviewing her for the book. Many people think that RA is a condition of elderly people. I give Carrie's story to illustrate that this is not the case. Carrie was diagnosed with juvenile RA at the age of three, when her mother noticed a persistent limp. All through her life Carrie has had to have joint replacements, otherwise she would not be able to live on her own, drive, work and walk. The operations are only half the story; there is also the day-to-day treatment. Carrie is on one drug for the disease long term and one drug each day: one is to stop the progression of the disease and the other is to get her out of bed in the morning.
	This Christmas I had a card and letter from Carrie. I wrote back to her telling her about this report and the debate today. In her letter, Carrie told me that she had had surgery on her left shoulder; the stay in hospital was, as ever, not good. At one point her surgeon advised her to leave hospital as soon as possible owing to the fact that it was such a dangerous place because of the risk of infection. Luckily the surgery was a success and she remained infection-free. She went on to say:
	"As each year goes by the resources seem to be cut in the NHS. I've never known it to affect me so directly from the prescribing of new drugs to having insoles put in my shoes".
	This is direct patient care. I hope the Minister will do her best to influence the departments so that those people who want to work and do so but have long-term conditions are given the help they need. Carrie is a firm advocate of disabled people working if they can. It builds confidence and increases social life; in theory, it is financially beneficial; and it keeps you physically active, within reason. She told me that she knows many people who just vegetate at home and lack the confidence even to pick up the telephone. There should be hard-hitting courses to get people back into work. There is far too much soft-soaping, she told me. She says she knows many people, far fitter than she is, who will not even try as they do not want to lose their benefits. Carrie says that that attitude is incredibly insulting to her and others who make the effort to retain employment. Although it is a controversial view, she has always believed that the best incentive the Government could use to reduce the number of unemployed within the disabled sector would be to cut benefits.
	Having talked to people with long-term musculoskeletal disorders, it seems to me that there should be a flexible approach. When surgery for joint replacements has to be undertaken and medical appointments kept, that should be taken into consideration and both employers and employees should be helped with such a flexible approach. On 14 January 2008 this Written Question was asked in another place:
	"To ask the Secretary of State for Health what support is available to employers to ensure patients with musculoskeletal disorders access early diagnosis and treatment to remain in work".
	Ann Keen replied,
	"We are not aware of any support available to employers to ensure patients with musculoskeletal disorders have access to early diagnosis and treatment to remain in work".—[Official Report, Commons, 14/1/08; col. 1027W.]
	If this situation is not rectified, I see nothing but problems. Surely this is a matter of joined-up government between the Department of Health and the former department of employment, now called Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
	On page 16 the report asks,
	"How well do GPs and occupational health professionals understand and deal with MSDs as they relate to the workplace? How well equipped is the NHS to provide early intervention, rehabilitation and other support for people with these conditions?".
	About 30 per cent of GP consultations are for musculoskeletal conditions. Patients need to be diagnosed correctly and given the correct medication and rehabilitation. There is concern that maybe not all of them will see a rheumatologist. Are there enough consultant rheumatologists? Last year the NHS introduced a musculoskeletal service framework. That was welcome, but there is some concern that the clinical assessment teams may not be led by a rheumatologist. There is also much concern that doctors in their training may not have enough hours to conclude the complex matters surrounding the health issues of MSDs. There is even more concern about how the hours of medical education for doctors may be reduced, due to the European working time directive. I hope that will be seriously looked at when the Tooke report is considered.
	Misdiagnosis of these serious conditions, leaving patients to deteriorate, is often seen, as I found in Bradford. One often hears that nurses could be left to deal with these patients. That is confusing for everyone concerned. A specialist doctor needs to do the diagnosing and updating of drugs, while the patient's journey needs the involvement of a team with advice and treatment from physiotherapists, occupational therapists and nurses.
	The employers need advice too. So much help can be given with the correct equipment, such as the correct office chairs, tables at the correct height, computers, lavatories, access to buildings, adequate transport and parking and much more.
	I have seen a young man so desperate with a bad back that he had to lie on the floor of a train when travelling. The report includes people with back pain, a huge problem for many people who are desperate to continue to work. With the correct treatment, they will do so.
	The report mentions the sick note culture, a great frustration for many employers. When GPs find writing a sick note is the easy way out, it is not good for the patients or the employers. I hope the report, Fit For Work?, will make many people realise how important it is to give people with MSD the right advice, help, medication and medical treatment. I am sure the Minister, who really cares, will do her bit to help and make things better.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for instigating this debate and for his speech, which was packed with important points. I thank him on behalf of the healthcare professionals who work with patients suffering from musculoskeletal disorders and on behalf of those patients living with those disorders. I hope that this debate will do a great service to everyone.
	The noble Lord has highlighted the plight of those suffering from musculoskeletal disorders and laid out the wider repercussions of those disorders in society and the workplace. From the Engineering Employers' Federation survey last year, we know that musculoskeletal disorders were attributed by over 68 per cent of employers as the main reason for long-term absenteeism from work, while the Department of Health tells us that 60 per cent of those on long-term absence leave cite musculoskeletal problems as their reason. Many of those people never return to work, resulting in 22 per cent of people on incapacity benefits being musculoskeletal patients—an enormous number.
	I wish to concentrate my remarks on the management of chronic pain and declare my interest as the lead for the chronic pain management programme in Cardiff, and as president of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. In our little pain management programme, which I know is in Wales and not in England, so I do not expect the Minister to answer for any devolved health issues, we see people who often have had many thousands of pounds spent on them. They have had treatments to no avail and are still searching for the magic bullet, which, sadly, that does not exist. For some, their problems go back many years into childhood; for others, their problems started with abuse, which was the beginning of their chronic pain and their chronic pain experience. For all of them, their condition has resulted in a series of losses: a loss of role or job, the loss of relationships, or failed intimate relationships. They become depressed, withdrawn and isolated.
	Many try to do what they can on a good day, only to pay for it later by having a flare-up of their condition; that is called underactivity/overactivity cycling. On the pain management programme, they learn about chronic pain and ways to pace their activities to avoid that cycling. They also learn to adapt to their limitations and to have the courage to resume a lifestyle, fully aware that life will never be as it was before the condition started.
	Our programme is run, on a day-to-day basis, by a physiotherapist and a clinical psychologist who teach the patients about the interplay between pain mechanisms and the actions of drugs, and why those drugs often do not work for them. They teach the effect of fatigue and depression on the patients' overall pain experience, and the influence of their social situation on that experience, which covers both work and family demands, including intimate sexual relationships.
	Our patient outcomes are really dramatic; I am very proud of them. Average patient scores for anxiety and depression almost halve. Patients' quality of life scores more than double, while their scores on functioning—and their self-satisfaction scores with it—improve dramatically. Scores are trebled and are being maintained at a six months' follow-up after the programme.
	We have now started a programme to try and keep those still in work there by intervening to stop the downward spiral—and this, our latest programme, has shown even better outcomes than we normally achieve. I know that the numbers are small, and I ask your Lordships to forgive me that, but they are quite impressive. We have only run the programme once: of the seven who completed the programme, six attended a follow-up. Depression and anxiety scores were now normal for four of them, while they had fallen significantly for the other two. Five admitted that they were now taking less time off work; four had visited their GP less, while the other two had visited no more than previously. In all, their functioning scores showed a marked improvement.
	So yes, I am proud of this little programme. My point is that when you empower patients—when you help them help themselves—they can do so much, but such programmes are few and far between. They do not cost much. Our costs are less than £1,700 for each patient completing the programme. That includes the costs of all those who drop out or who, at assessment, clearly will not benefit. The programme is only NHS funded. We integrate with rheumatology, psychiatry and anaesthetic-led pain clinics.
	It is important that people learn to change their own work environment and are empowered to search out and create the support that they individually need. It is tragic that such high numbers are on benefit when, with the best of today's medical care and pain management, they could be supported to carry on working. We have too often seen what happens to people who leave the workplace due to illness or disability. They languish on incapacity benefit. Depression and worsening health take their toll, and, crucially, they then have a lower chance of getting back into work.
	On average, if you are off sick for six months, you have an 80 per cent chance of being out of work for five years. Once someone has been claiming incapacity benefit for two years or more, they are more likely to retire or die than return to employment.
	A strong evidence base suggests that this psychosocial model of intervention effectively informs the management of musculoskeletal disorders in both clinical and occupational settings. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, outlined a workplace-based programme. That principle forms the basis of the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, which is widely seen as the authoritative guide for vocational rehabilitation.
	However, there is limited understanding of the model among patients, GPs and employers, who often find it difficult to look beyond immediate overwhelming physical symptoms. The Department of Health's musculoskeletal services framework makes only passing reference to rehabilitation and back-to-work vocational reintegration, which is unfortunate, as the pain management model helps us to understand what is happening to people with musculoskeletal disorders and how and why they drop through the net.
	The model has implications for the stakeholders and employees of both the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions. The health, work and well-being strategy may be the best place for such a model now to sit. Dame Carol Black, who, as has been said, is the national director for health and work, expressed the hope that,
	"in time MSDs will become less relevant to work and working life".
	However, she went on to say:
	"Until then, efforts to raise awareness of these disorders must continue with ever greater urgency".
	Her vocational rehabilitation task force will look at why so few employers offer occupational health or vocational rehabilitation to their employees.
	The Work Foundation report also makes an important point about self-management, advising us to,
	"help the individual to find strategies to manage their own condition, which will enable them to make their own decisions about their working arrangements".
	I therefore suggest that commissioners in health must work in conjunction with vocational services to ensure that rehabilitation to work is well integrated into mainstream clinical practice and that a return to functioning becomes a valued outcome for patients, because it can be the first step towards a return to work.

Lord Addington: My Lords, we must thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for bringing this report forward. When I read it for the first time late at night earlier this week, my initial reaction was, "No"—expletive deleted—"Sherlock", because most of what it said was obvious. I then realised that I was being unfair on the report, because I had never previously seen a combination of effects put together in the same place. People were admitting the quite obvious fact that if you have a debilitating physical condition that removes your ability to go to work and carry out a normal life, you will be more likely, for instance, to be depressed. They go hand in glove. In addition, I have covered virtually everything that is mentioned in the report in many other areas on which I have spoken in this House.
	We have talked about physiotherapists. Regarding soft tissue injuries, last year I ran a small and probably not very successful campaign. It was all about getting in early, getting the right treatment, making sure you are treated early and making sure you listen to the advice. In that way, you will get over the condition—it will not become chronic. That is exactly what this report says. It also says that if you need a drug treatment, you should get it early and you will probably get the benefits early. You will not get the chronic condition—you will not get the wear and tear.
	This is not a great surprise to anyone when you think about it. We then try and cross-reference it again. Having had the disability brief for a long time, I have become very aware that certain people who have a condition will be able to access and do certain things, but not everything. It is the idea of what you can do, as opposed to being properly fit and that you can do something. There are many organisations available; they are probably not the ones represented by this group, but if Parliament cannot help people talk to each other, who else can? People are not addressing the fact that they should concentrate on what they can do.
	Employers should be given the right information early and told that it is not that expensive—this is a mantra I have gone through I do not know how many times. They should be told about early intervention, for example, about breaking up the working pattern or, in this case, about repetitive strain injuries or conditions that aggravate. Then the person will or can still be an active part of your workforce or can go and do another job. If that is done, you can carry on. These are small changes.
	However, we come back to a series of problems that have occurred again and again. The first one is ignorance, at every single point in this process. The GP knows about prescribing painkillers and now also anti-depressants. Having done so for the immediate problems for the patient in the waiting room—the sick note Britain culture is also an issue here—he may well, in his own eyes, be fulfilling his job.
	People might not see themselves doing any other job than the one they have already done. I think I have mentioned young males—a young male who does a hard physical job and probably has low academic qualifications will find great difficulty in even comprehending the idea of retraining. Indeed, the higher people's academic qualification, the much more likely they are to have a full role in society. Disabled lawyers in wheelchairs do not do too badly. It is that simple. At the higher end of the social and economic scale, jobs tend to be less physically demanding. As your skills are more valuable, people are more readily available to make adaptations for you. That is why the multiplier effect comes down.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, mentioned this statistic, which I think I first heard during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill. With X amount of time on benefits, a person is more likely to die than get a job. It is something that carries on. The real message behind this report is one of co-ordination among Government. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and I had a conversation about this. We are on very familiar ground. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, if the Department of Health gets it right, the Department for Work and Pensions saves money. It is all Treasury money—that is, public money.
	However, trying to punch holes in Chinese walls within Whitehall is something with which, in the time that I have been here, every Government has had a challenge. Trying to save the initial investment to go somewhere else is always a challenge to Whitehall. It is not just this Government. They have had their successes and failures. I wish them well on this, but trying to get people to co-ordinate still too often depends on a couple of Ministers recognising the problem and being prepared to work together. If there is that sort of co-ordination at the top, something can then be done—but it still relies on that. You need institutional structures to disseminate information downward to people who may not be used to reading forms or publications to discover about their condition; GPs need to relate this condition to people who go to them and trade unions need to make sure that they know about the condition, and so on. Information needs disseminating so that people can act early enough to stop the chronic situation; that is what is at the heart of this. If this report inspires the Government to start acting in this way, they will have achieved a great deal.
	I have a couple of questions that I can fairly ask the Minister. First, what is the formal interaction between the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions on this situation? In the last welfare reform, the Department for Work and Pensions set up a series of training posts and interviews to get people back into jobs, often concentrating on mental health. I was a part of that project. How is that process feeding back into the Department of Health? That is a fair point, which we should all hear about very soon.
	Secondly, have we improved the situation of access to physiotherapy to ensure that it is more immediately available and that people do not have to wait for it? If you have to wait on painkillers and you have deteriorating physical health, when muscle tone and mass disappear, you will find it technically more difficult to take exercise. You will have to go through an even longer period of help, which costs, or you will be permanently in a situation of chemical management.
	What is happening with those two situations? I would appreciate it if the noble Baroness could give me some information now or at least make sure that we know soon. Unless information is disseminated along with the processes that support it, this problem will simply carry on in its traditional merry way.

Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for initiating this debate. I welcome the opportunity to speak on a subject that has concerned me for some years; I also welcome the Work Foundation's report, which has posed some intriguing questions for both the Government and the health service.
	The noble Lord's Motion calls for a concerted approach to these matters, and the Government's own musculoskeletal framework seems to me a perfect starting point for such an approach. It is fair to say that this framework—MSF—is recognised by patient groups and clinicians alike as an excellent policy document. The vision that the document presents is really very imaginative. It would promote the development of services in the community; provide patients with better information with which to manage their own conditions and thereby avoid being admitted to hospital; improve the way in which the flow of patients is currently managed; and—pertinently, in the context of the noble Lord's Motion—it would facilitate an individual's return to independent living, including a return to work, as several noble Lords have said.
	Taken in the round, the framework would undoubtedly mean treatment being delivered to patients in a more timely and effective way. Why is it, then, that apart from the 18-week target for orthopaedics, virtually nothing has been done about the report since it was published more than a year and a half ago? It is almost as if the framework document is sitting on a shelf in Richmond House gathering dust. I happen to know a bit about documents that gather dust in the Department of Health. When I presented my own report some years ago, a senior civil servant, who shall remain nameless, told me that it would simply collect dust on the shelf, along with others. When I told him that I cared not about the report but rather about disabled people, he shrugged, so we got Mrs Thatcher—now the noble Baroness—to straighten him out.
	I respectfully submit that this report really needs an injection of ministerial enthusiasm. As far as I can see, no Minister has stood up to give wholehearted backing to the framework, or to put in place what is required, which is a sort of clinical champion to pick up the recommendations in the MSF and run with them. One problem with doing so is the complete absence of outcome measures. That is a major deficiency, because at the moment we have large variations in expenditure on musculoskeletal conditions between different PCTs around the country, as has been mentioned already. Without any measure of outcomes, these variations and what they mean for patients are very difficult to interpret.
	The national budgeting database reveals that, as a percentage of spending, musculoskeletal conditions account for as much 10 per cent of the budget in some areas, and less than 1 per cent in others. Why is there that enormous variation, and what does it mean? Without an investigation by a neutral body, such as the National Audit Office, we will not know the answer. It suggests to me that, at the very least, the quality of care that some patients are receiving is a good deal less than it should be. That should worry us, given the scale of the problem that we are dealing with.
	The estimates that I have seen are that nearly a quarter of all adults and around 12,000 children are affected by musculoskeletal problems which limit everyday activities. More than 1 million people under 45 are affected in one way or another. According to the framework document, up to 60 per cent of people on long-term sick leave cite musculoskeletal problems as the reason. The real figure may be considerably higher, because a large proportion of arthritis sufferers experience depression, which is another significant cause of incapacity, as many noble Lords have already mentioned.
	In terms of the burden on the NHS, musculoskeletal conditions represent the sixth-largest area of expenditure, at over £3.3 billion, accounting for about 30 per cent of patients who visit their GPs. That statistic alone, which has already been mentioned, makes the absence of musculoskeletal conditions from the quality and outcomes framework really quite astonishing. If they were included, it is certain that we would have a lot more data about the outcomes than we currently do. Would the Minister consider such an inclusion?
	Perhaps it would be helpful to mention that the GP general medical services contract governs the provision of primary care services in the UK. Under the contract, primary care service provision is measured against a quality and outcomes framework, or QOF. GP services are measured in points, up to a maximum of just over 1,000, and each point is worth a nominal amount of money to the GPs, thereby incentivising them to tackle those clinical areas included in the QOF. There are no points in the QOF for musculoskeletal disorders, such as ankylosing spondylitis, and so there is no contractual incentive for GPs to make these a priority.
	I would like to raise the plight of the 200,000 British adults who have been diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, one of the MSDs mentioned in the report we are debating today.
	Unlike many other rheumatic conditions, ankylosing spondylitis disproportionately affects young men, and commonly starts before the age of 30, striking people in their late teens and their twenties. Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory disease which affects the spine, joints, tendons and ligaments and, in its severest form, can result in complete spinal fusion causing extreme physical limitations. What may not be appreciated by noble Lords is that the joints between the spine and the ribs are affected, which severely limits breathing. Expansion of the chest occurs when the ribs move upwards, forwards and outwards. This movement is prevented when the joints are fixed. Respiration is then maintained only by movements of the diaphragm.
	These patients may present in different guises; for instance, a young man aged 18 came to see me with what appeared to be an injured thumb. An X-ray showed arthritis of the thumb and a blood test surprisingly revealed ankylosing spondylitis. The disease can be very difficult to diagnose in the early stages and can easily be overlooked due to the large number of people who complain of back ache. The report cites a survey undertaken by the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, which found that the average time it took patients to see a rheumatologist was 27 months.
	Sick leave, work disability and even withdrawal from work is common among ankylosing spondylitis people, with resultant costs to the state in lost productivity and incapacity benefit claims, not to mention the social and economic costs to the individuals and their families. About one-third of people with ankylosing spondylitis may be unable to work at any one time. The report cites a recent study that estimates the average total cost to society of a person with ankylosing spondylitis as just over £6,000 per year, largely as a result of early retirement caused by the disease. The study, Fit for Work?, page 48, also found that of the direct costs per patient, hospital costs were the greatest burden, while drug treatment represented a very low percentage of the total, which I think has been mentioned already.
	We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, of the overwhelming benefits that early detection can have on a patient's condition. A wait of more than two years to receive a diagnosis is unacceptable for people suffering from such progressive, chronic diseases. One of the most significant proposals in the musculoskeletal service framework was the development of clinical assessment and treatment services, known as CATS. The team brings together skilled professionals from primary and secondary care, including GPs with special interests, and rheumatologists and nurse practitioners for faster assessment, diagnosis, treatment referral to other specialists, and to support a return to work.
	The problem is that no additional funding has been allocated to implement the new services proposed, and there appears to be no mechanism to ensure that the quality of the service is improved or even kept at today's standards. This system of CATS is a wonderful idea on paper, but early detection and treatment will be possible only if these teams contain professional expertise and diagnostic tools to ensure that MSD sufferers receive the swift diagnosis and speedy treatment, which is so essential to their rehabilitation.
	Time and again we have heard that the Department of Health deflects its responsibilities to the PCTs when they are asked how implementation is progressing. With no information being collected centrally, how can the Government possibly assess how their guidance is being implemented? What guarantee is there that the quality of care being given to MSD patients is what is should be? What MSD patients want from CATS is swift access to an experienced rheumatologist. Without proper assessment of how these teams are structured, the quality of care they are receiving remains unclear. This is just not acceptable for people whose future quality of life depends on early diagnosis of their condition.
	Ankylosing spondylitis seems to me to be exactly the kind of illness that the CATS should be able to identify and diagnose quickly but ,I ask the Minister, how can we be sure that this will happen without a guarantee of suitable clinical expertise on each CATS team?
	If the NHS is to diagnose and treat quickly, and help patients return to work, it needs the necessary resources to do so. I noted with interest last week's Health Select Committee report into NICE and its recommendations regarding the need for an assessment of the wider societal costs of treatment, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned. If NICE considered the benefits to the taxpayer of supporting patients to work, it would undoubtedly conclude that it was worth the investment in the NHS to deliver returns to the Exchequer.
	I would also ask the Minister to take steps to alert the Healthcare Commission and strategic health authorities about the need for the NHS to implement NICE guidance on arthritis and related conditions, which the evidence shows has not been properly taken up. Inevitably in all such debates there has been criticism about mistakes and deficiencies. We all make mistakes, so I would like to make a constructive suggestion which I mentioned during Question Time yesterday. Clinicians throughout the country meet regularly once a week or so to discuss all the mistakes that they have made.
	At Guy's we were fortunate to have the senior surgeon Mr Rex Lawrie to chair these meetings. He was expert at doing so because he created an atmosphere that was friendly and not threatening. They were the most popular meetings that we had. When some poor registrar stood up to confess some mistake that he had made with the sweat pouring off his brow and seeing his future prospects disappearing in the distance, the senior surgeon would reassure him by telling him of a bigger mistake that he himself had made recently. He was creating an atmosphere in which people were honest about their mistakes. That is the ideal environment in which to learn how to minimise their mistakes. It became rather like the general confession, and just as therapeutic. I wonder whether the Minister would consider introducing similar meetings to the Department of Health. It would certainly improve matters for the patients and for those who work in the NHS. Who knows: the Department of Health might start a fashion throughout all government departments.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, this has been an excellent debate and I thank my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey for enabling us to discuss issues that are fundamental to the health and well-being of individuals, our economy and our society. His speech will provide us with invaluable reflections in the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions and DBERR. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this informative debate. We welcomed last year's publication of the Work Foundation's report Fit for Work?, which raised a number of important issues for the Government to reflect on. Fit for Work? highlights the challenge that musculoskeletal conditions pose, not just for individuals but for the health service, society and the economy as a whole.
	Musculoskeletal conditions can be associated with a number of employment-related difficulties, including unemployment, absenteeism and reduced productivity in the workplace, or so-called presenteeism. Yet we know that work can be good for people with musculoskeletal problems, in terms of both their physical and psychological health and well-being, and as part of the rehabilitation process, as mentioned by many noble Lords. Work brings dignity and a sense of purpose. It has an impact not only on the individual but on their family and sometimes the wider community. Of course, for some, work may no longer be a practical option as serious and debilitating conditions worsen. However, for the majority, better and earlier treatment holds the key to reducing the impact of musculoskeletal conditions on an individual's ability to work. That need for early intervention, with effective partnerships between patients, employers, GPs and specialists, is a key theme of the Fit for Work? report. My noble friend rightly said that organisations were still a long way from that reality, but we are truly working across government to try to break down the barriers both in Whitehall and at local level.
	Of course, central government also has its role to play and we are working closely across government to help people with health conditions to remain in or to return to work. The health, work and well-being strategy has brought together the three departments with the most interest in these issues, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Health and Safety Executive. Much good work has happened since the strategy was launched in 2005 and we are starting to see a real stakeholder commitment to this agenda.
	The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Fit for Work? both emphasise that resoundingly early access to appropriate treatment and support is a priority for employers, healthcare professionals and patients alike. Through publication of the musculoskeletal services framework in 2006, we have taken steps to ensure better outcomes for people with musculoskeletal conditions by setting out evidence-based best practice on the provision and commissioning of musculoskeletal services. I am very grateful for the welcome for that framework expressed by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and others. I can assure noble Lords that this document is not gathering dust.
	Throughout the summer and autumn of 2007, 10 regional road shows were hosted to help local health economies to develop intermediate orthopaedic services that will help to reduce long waits. The framework has produced examples of good practice in orthopaedics on the 18-week website to help organisations to learn from the success of others, precisely so that people all over the country can get good and swift treatment and advice. A series of 18-week commissioning pathways, including some for common orthopaedic conditions, has been published. The purpose of the pathways is to support discussions between key local stakeholders around the services that they should be commissioning to meet and sustain the figure of 18 weeks. They have been developed and agreed between clinicians, managers, professional groups and the royal colleges.
	Early intervention is also a key theme of the reforms announced by the Prime Minister last week. There are now more than 15 million people in England with a chronic or long-term condition. With the ageing population and the rise in the so-called lifestyle diseases, the NHS finds itself faced with new challenges in supporting and caring for patients.
	Historically, pressures on the hospital system meant prevention and a personal service took second place. But the record levels of investment since 1997 have opened up the potential to fund new preventive programmes and care that is more tailored to need. This will ensure an NHS that can identify clinical needs earlier on, that keeps people healthy and fit, and that puts them far more in control of their health—empowering them to become genuine partners in care.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, drew our attention to the painful realities of rheumatoid arthritis. I pay tribute to the voluntary organisations she mentioned. I will certainly read Women's Insight into Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was disturbed to hear of Carrie's views of treatment in the NHS, but I can assure the noble Baroness and Carrie that millions of people really are receiving improved services. For one thing, they have joint operations far more swiftly than they did before, which must be good for those concerned.
	In response to the question about consultant rheumatologists, I can say that there are 511 out of a total of 32,874 consultants working in the NHS in England. That is 10,500 more consultants than were working in the NHS in 1997. Forecasts show that there will be around 2,500 more consultants by 2010, in accordance with the increasing demand for more specialist doctors. The emphasis of CATS is on multidisciplinary working, and evidence shows that many successful teams are led by other professionals such as nurse practitioners, but that is not to say that I denigrate the role of consultant rheumatologists, who do the most fantastic job, where they are available.
	I also want to mention the vital role of research in this area. The Department of Health and the Medical Research Council support a range of research projects concerned with arthritis and other rheumatic diseases. The MRC wants to expand its portfolio of musculoskeletal research. Last summer I had the privilege of visiting the Bath Institute for Rheumatic Diseases—BIRD—an independent registered charity which raises funds to support research and education into many aspects of bone and joint diseases. The research it carries out is first class but its real value-added is the way in which it works in close collaboration with the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases trust and the University of Bath, thus enhancing benefits for patients. It is an example of research going to patients at the bedside, which is very good.
	The emphasis on shared responsibility and ownership is also crucially important in a broader sense, as effective and targeted services are only possible with the involvement and commitment of a range of stakeholders. Partnership is a key theme of the Commissioning Framework for Health and Well-being, which we published for consultation last March.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, was right to draw our attention to the importance of commissioning. The framework contained an important chapter recognising the interdependence between work and health and the importance of addressing the health problems faced by those of working age. Commissioning of services is clearly essential. With early access to treatment so vital, it is important that commissioners understand the needs of their local populations and the role they can play in the services that will help working-age people.
	We now have to build on this and ensure that commissioners have the support that they need to make this vision a reality. As many noble Lords have pointed out, employers are essential to the health and well-being agenda. We need employers who are prepared to employ people with health conditions or disabilities, who protect and promote their employees' health and who support staff to stay in work when they are having problems.
	As part of the health, work and well-being strategy, we are working to improve the support that is available to employers. A key element of this is the activity of the Health and Safety Executive, which works to ensure that employees are not injured or made ill by their jobs. Musculoskeletal disorders are a major cause of work-related ill health in Great Britain. A priority for the HSE over the last decade, therefore, has been to reduce the number of musculoskeletal disorders caused by work. The HSE has been working closely with employers and trade unions to improve risk management and to give managers, staff and safety representatives the tools they need to prevent musculoskeletal disorders developing because of work. One example of this is its Better Backs campaign, which has been mentioned.
	Since February 2006, the HSE has also been piloting a free occupational health and return-to-work support service for small and medium-sized enterprises, consisting of an advice line and workplace visits. The pilot, which has been well received by participating businesses, is due to end as planned in February this year. We now need to consider what we can learn from it as we plan the best way to support employers, particularly smaller ones. The suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, that managers of SMEs should get together to discuss these issues is a very good one and I will take that on board.
	Employers do not necessarily know the best way to support their employees. That is why we have set up a vocational rehabilitation taskforce to look at the best ways of encouraging and supporting employers to provide good-quality rehabilitative services to their staff. The task group has commissioned an evidence review to assess the effectiveness, including cost-effectiveness, of measures designed to ensure the rehabilitation and return to work of adults suffering from common health problems and from injuries.
	On occupational health services, we can learn a great deal from the example of Transport for London, cited by my noble friend, which sounded fantastic. We are determined to change the fact that only a small proportion of the population have access to such services and, as part of the health, work and well-being strategy, we are working to engage employers to show them the business benefits of taking action to support their staff. We know that we need to go further, and improving access to occupational health support will be a key focus of the health, work and well-being strategy as we take it forward. Indeed, it has been the key focus of Dame Carol Black's review, to which I will return. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the occupational health and safety officers here in Parliament, who do an excellent job. They provide many facilities such as physiotherapy.
	Several noble Lords have mentioned NICE and the economic perspective. I am personally sympathetic to the recommendation in the report that, while the prospect of considering wider societal costs and benefits is initially an attractive one, it is important to recognise that the position is not straightforward and that there would be winners and losers from any change. For example, if we instruct NICE to attach additional weight to treatments that can get people back to work, that, by implication, means that we are attaching less weight to improving the health of retired people or those with terminal illnesses who will never be well enough to return to work. The consequences of any change would therefore need to be considered very carefully, including any interplay with anti-discrimination laws. However, it is an issue that the Government are looking at actively.
	We also need to work more with healthcare professionals, and GPs in particular, to ensure that they better understand occupational health issues, the links between health and work and the role that they can play in helping patients to remain in or return to work. We want healthcare professionals to appreciate that a return to work should be one of the indicators of a successful outcome of the care that they provide to their patients. The Government are working with the professional medical bodies to provide tailored education and support.
	The other day, I saw some research that had been carried out by Doctors.net.uk in September last year. It was based on a survey of 1,500 GPs and found that two-thirds of doctors were unaware of the evidence that work is good for health. There is therefore much to do in that area. However, we are doing a lot of work with GPs, examples of which include a training programme for them that the Department for Work and Pensions has been piloting in partnership with the Royal College of General Practitioners, and modules in health and work that have been developed for inclusion in undergraduate medical degree syllabuses.
	The DWP is also developing a range of tools to provide practical support for GPs and other healthcare professionals. For example, it has produced an online learning module for GPs about handling difficult consultations with patients on the subject of a return to work. This programme of work builds on ground-breaking independent research, commissioned by the DWP and published in September 2006, showing for the first time that work truly is generally good for health and well-being. In some areas, GPs and Jobcentre Plus are working together closely on the ground, and Jobcentre Plus representatives are working in health centres, which is excellent.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, spoke about the management of chronic pain. I have visited her excellent clinic in Wales; it is not just a small clinic but a centre of excellence. The model that she cited is clearly best practice which should be further disseminated.
	The noble Lord, Lord McColl, mentioned the QOF. GPs are, of course, at the forefront of managing musculoskeletal conditions. Work in other clinical areas, such as coronary heart disease, asthma and diabetes, has shown that both the level and quality of care for these conditions in primary care can be greatly improved by inclusion in the quality and outcomes framework. I know that many noble Lords see the inclusion of musculoskeletal conditions, such as osteoporosis, within the QOF as key to improving services.
	The Department of Health is committed to developing new clinical areas within the quality and outcomes framework. Indeed, we have found it frustrating that the negotiating process has not succeeded in delivering the continuous quality improvements that we see as a fundamental feature of the QOF. That is one reason why my noble friend Lord Darzi signalled in his interim report that we intended to take a more wide-ranging look at how to reshape incentives for quality and outcomes in primary medical care.
	The activity that I have mentioned is now starting to bear fruit and we are seeing a real and positive shift in the way that healthcare professionals consider employment. Perhaps I may give one example. Dame Carol Black has met more than 30 of the main medical colleges and health professional bodies to agree a ground-breaking consensus statement on health and work. However, it is clear that we need a real change in attitude if we are to help more people of working age to find and stay in work, regardless of health conditions. As is said in the report, Fit for Work? Musculoskeletal Disorders and Labour Market Participation, we need to be more positive, focusing on what people can do and not on what they cannot do.
	To support this change in culture, the DWP is also currently revising the format and content of the statutory medical certificate, moving towards more of a "fit note" system than a "sick note" one. The department is working with employers, employees, healthcare professionals and their representative bodies to produce a certificate that will assist and encourage doctors to provide clearer and more helpful fitness-for-work advice for their patients. The revised certificate will also provide employers with the information needed to help to facilitate an employee's earlier return to work wherever possible.
	Alongside that, the DWP has been working to ensure that the welfare system supports people with health conditions to move back to work, rather than condemning them to a lifetime on benefits. Incapacity benefits are being replaced from October this year with a new employment and support allowance. The new allowance will have a revised medical assessment—the work capability assessment—which will be much more positive than its predecessor. It will consider what customers can do, as well as what they cannot. It will also consider the customers' perceptions of their illnesses and the barriers that they create, as well as assessing the health interventions that would help to improve capability and the chances of a return to work. Comprehensive support will be made available to benefit recipients through the very successful Pathways to Work programme, which will be available across the country from April this year. Pathways support can include access to the ground-breaking condition management programmes, which help people to manage their conditions and return to work.
	All that demonstrates just how much progress we have made, but of course there is more to do. That is why my right honourable friends Alan Johnson and Peter Hain asked Dame Carol Black to carry out a review of the health of working-aged people. The review, which is due to report shortly, will contain recommendations for government and should help to shape the agenda over the coming years. In particular, Dame Carol is likely to focus on ways to expand access to occupational health and early interventions, provide more support for employers, move to a more positive "fit note not sick note" culture, and improve links between GPs and employers—all the things that noble Lords have today rightly asked for.
	In conclusion, we welcome this debate and firmly support my noble friend and others in their efforts to raise awareness of this critical issue. From my experience of working in the south Wales valleys with an MP and his constituents, I am well aware of the impact of musculoskeletal diseases on the lives of individuals, their families and communities. But that was 20 years ago, and there was not such great understanding then of the link between work and well-being. Work was seen as being for the fit and healthy—the wholly well. I am glad that attitudes have changed and continue to change and that work these days is much more flexible. The Government have recognised the importance of the issues raised and are taking steps to address them. Debates such as this will, I trust, not only act as a catalyst for further action by all partners involved, but in some way contribute to a much needed change in the culture.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I am obviously enormously grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I should like to think that the importance attached to the issue is reflected by the substantial number of Members of your Lordships' House who are present at 4.15 on a Thursday, but I fear that it may be rather more to do with the noble Lord, Lord Steel, than anything that was said during the past hour and a half or so. Nevertheless, many noble Lords who may have caught the last few minutes of this discussion will understand the salience of these issues, because of the prevalence of back pain and the importance of trying to bring together the work of different government departments. As the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said to me as he moved from one part of the Chamber to another earlier, this is all about joint working.
	I was especially grateful to hear the vivid examples given to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, and about the importance of pain management, which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, raised. I was also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, for highlighting the issue of rising pension costs, which I do not think that we returned to during the subsequent discussion, and the position of SMEs.
	I am obviously grateful to my noble friend Lady Royall for her response. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about the difficulty of punching holes in Chinese walls within government. The noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, apart from his chilling example of Mrs Thatcher—now the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher—straightening out a senior civil servant, about which we might all have liked to have heard more detail, stressed the importance of having senior ministerial championing of the issue. It is very nice to see my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath in his place—I know that that is for another purpose—because in his previous roles in both the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions, he was very keen to pursue this agenda.
	I hope that my noble friend Lady Royall will take away from this—and will discuss with the senior colleagues she mentioned—that, in responding to the Carol Black review, this is not a zero-sum game. Resources can be moved. This is not just looking at the amount that the health service spends on drug and other treatment. This is about looking at the best way of using government resources to improve the health and well-being of this country. I hope that there will be a senior ministerial champion for following this agenda.
	I am grateful to all noble Lords for participating in this debate, and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

House of Lords Bill [HL]

Lord Steel of Aikwood: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House in Committee accordingly.
	[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Viscount Simon) in the Chair.]

The Earl of Caithness: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
	"PART A1The Senate
	"The Senate
	(1) The second chamber of the United Kingdom Parliament shall be called the Senate.
	(2) Members of the Senate shall be called senators."

The Earl of Caithness: In moving Amendment No. 1, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 2, 13, 38, 69, 72, 73, 75, 81, 91, 96, 98, 104, 106, 114, 119, 134, 154, 156, 159, 160, 164, 166, 170, 172, 177, 179, 180 and 193.
	First, I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, for not being in my place to speak at Second Reading. Like him, I live in Scotland, but a little bit further north than he does. I was not able to be in the Chamber that afternoon. Secondly, I want to pose a question to the Government. Given that this has been a much-discussed subject—there are government proposals; a cross-party group meeting; the Public Administration Committee's report; and a huge amount of other business that we always say we do not have time for—will the Minister confirm that this Bill is being treated in accordance with the principles and usual procedures of this House and that there is not a special government procedure for this Bill? Will he also confirm, as he did at Second Reading, that there is a binding commitment to the retention of hereditary Peers, as far as the Government are concerned? Will he further confirm that the Government will not be giving time to this Bill, should we not get to the end of the Committee stage today?

Lord Denham: If my noble friend Lord Caithness will forgive me, I wonder if the noble Earl has considered whether his amendment is wise and in the interests of the House, because one of its consequences might be to inhibit debate on Clause 10 of the Bill, which is a most significant clause, and one which I would wish to oppose. I would like to give notice now that I reserve the right to speak on Clause 10 at the time when that Question is put.

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I, too, was concerned that I might be preventing a debate on parts of the Bill, but I was assured that I was not, and that this was the normal practice in your Lordships' House when one wanted to put down an amendment. It happened to be put here, but as my name is also attached to the Motion that my noble friend Lord Denham has just mentioned, I, too, do not want to restrict discussion on any part of the Bill.
	There are two main parts to my proposal. Amendment No. 1 would change the name of this Chamber from "House of Lords" to "Senate". We did discuss this both before and subsequent to 1999. I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has tabled Amendment No. 3 on somewhat similar lines. The reason it is time to change the name of this second Chamber is due to consequential Amendment No. 72. Amendment No.72 gives power to the commission to separate peerages from people sitting in Parliament. That is important. After putting down this amendment, I read the recent report of the Public Administration Select Committee, Propriety and Peerages—its second report of the 2007-08 session. What is says is interesting, because it coincides with my thinking. Paragraph 138 of the report states that,
	"a peerage is much more than an honour, not a prize but a duty. A seat in either House of Parliament should be sought for one reason only—to serve the people. It is not always clear whether all putative peers are attracted by the chance to improve the law or provide better scrutiny of the business of government. We doubt it is overly cynical to suggest that some people might be tempted by the title of Lord or Lady. In our view such people have no place in Parliament".
	That paragraph supports my argument that we ought to split the occupants of the second Chamber from the peerage. If that is going to be the case, we need a new name for the second Chamber. Reading on, paragraph 140 of the report says:
	"The Government has indicated in its last White Paper not only that it agrees that the link between the honour and the seat in the legislature should be broken, but that this idea had support from the cross-party group convened by Mr Straw before that White Paper was published".
	Could I ask the Minister, rather than the noble Lord, Lord Steel, what the Government thinking is on this? Those two paragraphs clearly recommend a split between a peerage and the right to sit in the second Chamber, and the consequential effect of that is a requirement to change the name. I declare that I am not hooked on the word "senate". It was the word I chose, but I would not mind something else—I am concerned with the principle. For clarification—not related to the amendment—I will make my position clear on reform of this House. It has not changed at all, and is that the second Chamber should be wholly elected—and if we cannot get to that stage, it should be wholly appointed. I am not convinced that there should be any mix between the two. I beg to move.

Lord Richard: moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 2:
	Before Clause 1, line 7, at end insert—
	"( ) This section shall have effect upon the making of an order by the Secretary of State, and no such order may be made unless—
	(a) the Secretary of State has published a report stating that the policy of Her Majesty's Government is that the House of Lords should be renamed the Senate; and(b) the House of Commons has approved the report by resolution."

Lord Richard: This amendment would amend the new clause proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I say at the outset that there is a terrible sense of having been here, not once before, but perhaps 17 times.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: Nineteen!

Lord Richard: Nineteen, is it? My noble friend may well be right. Most of the arguments have been heard. But, as has often been said, all the arguments have been heard, but not yet has everybody put them. I suspect that a certain amount of the debates in Committee will be repetitious. I say at the outset that I propose to be repetitious, for one good reason—because it is important, now that the Bill has been introduced, that the arguments for and against the Bill and its principles are expressed clearly and unmistakeably, so that those who are not in this House may have a clear opportunity to see what these views are.
	I turn to the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. My amendment to the new clause is simple. It is to say that the section on creating a senate and calling us all senators,
	"shall have effect upon the making of an order by the Secretary of State, and no such order may be made unless ... the Secretary of State has published a report stating that the policy of Her Majesty's Government is that the House of Lords should be renamed the Senate; and ... the House of Commons has approved the report by resolution".
	However one looks at it, the idea of calling this Chamber a senate and us all becoming senators is a pretty major step. When I was a boy I had four ambitions. First, I wanted to be a senator; secondly, a cardinal—which one could not be; thirdly, a tenor; and fourthly, a jockey. Alas it is the tragedy of my life that I ended up as a double bass and weighing 17 stone. Nevertheless, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, is giving me the opportunity at some point to become a senator.
	I cannot help but observe in passing on this issue that senators were usually elected; certainly they were in Rome. They were not appointed, but gained their position as the result of an election. If I were elected as a senator, I would be more pleased than if I were to become an appointed one.
	More seriously, the principal argument against the amendment is that the new clause pre-empts the forthcoming White Paper. We all know that the Government have been in intense discussions and that an all-party group has been meeting. We have been assured that the result of those discussions will emerge in the not too distant future, so to pre-empt the result of the talks and the forthcoming White Paper by taking a decision now on whether we should be called senators, is going too far. As I have said, I do not necessarily oppose the principle of calling the second Chamber a senate, but I do object to pre-empting the White Paper. For those reasons, we should not pass this new clause until it has emerged. I beg to move.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I rise to oppose Amendment No. 1 and to speak in opposition to other amendments in the grouping, not as to the merits of any single amendment but to the common factor which relates to changing the composition of your Lordships' House. That, under the Cranborne deal which was accepted by the Government and thus is to be honoured, is not possible until stage 2 of the reforms. That is because it is a part, but not the whole, of the essence of the deal that your Lordships' House as constituted shall remain until stage 2. So your Lordships will be relieved to hear that this will not be a long speech on the tangled vineyard in which the grapes cannot even ripen until stage 2. We are not concerned either with the merits of the Cranborne deal.
	Amendment No. 1 destroys affinity with the monarch as to the creation of a life peerage under the royal prerogative, which is also slighted by other provisions in the Bill, but I shall not take your Lordships' time to go through those at this point; there are quite a few of them. The Oath of Allegiance, taken on grant of a written summons of attendance, will presumably go, thus making another change to the composition of the House. It would change it from a wholly appointed Chamber into a wholly elected Chamber, which cannot be achieved under the Cranborne deal.
	We enter very choppy seas in this debate in Committee. Is Clause 10, which reneges on the deal, to stand part of the Bill? This was discussed at Second Reading and need not be discussed at this point in the Committee stage. Are Clauses 14 to 17, which foreclose on the peerage for life granted under the Royal Prerogative to stand part of the Bill, albeit, as recognised by Section 2 of the House of Lords Act, no enabling provision as to implementation under standing orders is given to this Act—prime legislation which operates direct? It is contrary to convention as recognised by the House of Lords.
	How can we know whether the ship of state will weather these seas today. The Bill has been drafted and brought forward by a series of well-meaning volunteers who really represent no one. One has to take that into account in a venture which is, in essence, not particularly constructive. The Government have affirmed for the fifth time, from 1999 until the Second Reading of this Bill, that they propose to honour the Cranborne deal. Is not the reality of the situation that whatever amendments are made to the Bill, should it reach the other place there will be an objection and the Bill will fail— the fate of any Private Member's Bill which is not taken up by the Government? I oppose Clause 1 and I shall oppose in due course, for these reasons, many other amendments.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I intervene early in the debate to indicate the views of the promoters of the Bill, not only on this amendment but on a whole raft of the amendments which are before us. The point that I want to dwell on very heavily is that there have been two significant events since Second Reading which I believe the House should take into account.
	The first has already been referred to—that is, the publication, just before we rose for the Christmas Recess, of the report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration. This report originated from concern about the cash for peerages question. I wish to quote two parts of the summary at the beginning of this 85-page report to indicate how important it is to our deliberations. The report states:
	"Our main proposal is for an immediate House of Lords reform measure, clearly defined in scale and scope".
	I repeat, "clearly defined in scale and scope". It continues:
	"Its primary purpose would be to put the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission onto a statutory footing, and empower it to take decisions on the size, balance and composition of the House against agreed and explicit criteria. A mechanism is also needed for peers to resign from the House".
	In other words, the Select Committee of the other place is commending two of the three basic principles contained in the Bill.
	It further goes on to say:
	"Our recommendations build on principles to which the major parties have already signed up. We hope that the experience of the last two years will provide the impetus to make them happen, and with a proper urgency".
	I think that puts the whole of our debate today in a completely different context from that which we discussed at Second Reading because a Select Committee in the House of Commons, which has already voted to have an elected upper Chamber, is unanimously saying that we need to do something now to sort out the current House long before we ever get to the debates on a second Chamber.
	The other point of interest is that the Prime Minister himself appeared before the Liaison Committee in the other place and was asked a direct question about his attitude to the Bill. He repeated that he and the Justice Minister, Mr Straw, would look at it. He expressed concern over the legislative timetable in the other place, which is quite natural, but said that the measures in the Bill are not so contentious.
	So here we have a Select Committee of the other place urging that these reforms take place and the Prime Minister indicating that the Government would at least be open to considering these proposals if we were to present them to the other place. It is therefore my contention today that, while we are perfectly willing to accept many of the amendments without the need for much debate and to discuss others with their promoters and debate them on Report, there are none the less a raft of amendments—of which this is one—that fall quite wide of the narrow purpose of the Bill. They are what I call extraneous amendments.
	Of course, we could debate those amendments ad infinitum. If we were having a debate on the name of the House, I would agree with the noble Earl that it should be called a senate. However, the Bill does not attempt to deal with all these issues. It does not attempt to de-link serving in the House from an honour, nor to deal with the number of Bishops in the House or with those issues covered by some of the amendments on today's Marshalled List. Given the time constraints in the House, we must decide at the beginning whether we are going to proceed though all the amendments, including those that have nothing to do with the Bill as it is narrowly drawn, or whether we are going to stick to those that relate to the Bill itself and meet the wishes of the Select Committee in the other place. It is my great hope that we will agree to do the latter.
	I do not think we will see the debate on an elected or unelected House for many years to come. I am reinforced in that view—we dwelt on this on Second Reading—by the report of the Conservative Party's task force under Mr Kenneth Clarke. He is a senior and well respected parliamentarian and a strong advocate of an elected upper Chamber, and yet he reported that they would wish to have a statutory appointments commission. When asked why he would do that when he believed in an elected upper House, he said, "Because I don't expect to see that in my lifetime". Now, I wish him an enjoyable, cigar-laden lifetime, but I think he may be right. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that if and when I come to his memorial service—which is going to be less interesting than if he had all those other attributes in his life—I very much doubt that we will have an elected House by then.
	We are faced with the decision today on whether to go through all these amendments—we will not get through very many of them—and therefore in effect kill off the Bill, because that will be what happens. I would not expect the Government to mess up their legislative programme with endless days on the Bill with all these extraneous amendments. Nor would it be fair to those other Members of the House who have their own Private Member's Bills if we were to occupy our Fridays with this Bill. I plead with the noble Earl and others to withdraw these amendments so that we may confine ourselves to those that relate to the three main purposes of the Bill. If we did that, we would be doing a service to this House, to the other place and to the country at large.

Lord Strathclyde: We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Steel, a brilliant exposition of the frustration of what it is to be a Minister of the Crown. Any of us who have been Ministers—and in this House there are many who have held ministerial office—know just how often one thinks of a good idea for new legislation that is naturally supported by everyone who is sensible and right-thinking; one then makes a proposal to Parliament, and those wretched parliamentarians have the temerity to come forward with amendments to it. I have known countless examples of Ministers who wanted to bring forward perfectly sensible proposals, only to discover that other people in this House and in another place have an entirely different view and wish to debate the issues. That, of course, is the point of these two Houses of Parliament.
	I join the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in this tremendous sense of déjà vu. He and I have been debating these issues for donkey's years, and I expect that we will continue to do so. In fact, your Lordships have been discussing this issue since the party of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, championed the whole idea of an elected house in 1911. If it was so easy or so obvious we would have solved this problem years ago, but it is not. It is so fiendishly complicated and extremely difficult that, even when the noble Lord and his friends try to promote what looks like a Bill of limited ambition, we create 200 amendments. I do not know whether that is a record; perhaps the Minister can tell us.
	To think that I foolishly accepted the burden, as Leader of the Opposition, of leading from the Dispatch Box on this Bill! My dear wife, when she realised that I would have to give up all my Fridays for the rest of the year, was rather appalled; she was delighted, however, when the noble Lord, Lord Steel, decided to bring the Committee forward to a Thursday afternoon. That noble Lord also made an excellent point about the Select Committee report in another place, because something has changed since we debated this at Second Reading. It is an important report, not just because of the difficult issues that it dealt with—the potential scandal of cash-for-peerages, and the workings of the Appointments Commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Coddenham—but because it came forward with various proposals for change, some of which I am not entirely sure that I agree with.
	What the noble Lord, Lord Steel, did not say is that this report has yet to be debated in another place—I do not think that that has occurred. Given that it affects this House so much, it would be fair to wonder whether there ought to be a debate here as well on the report's suggestions. However, we should get a response from the Government before we get to that, given the normal practice in these instances. I hope that the Minister can give us an idea of when he believes that a report will be made—whether it will it be made in the proposed White Paper, or be separate, or whatever the answer is.
	In all this, I have not actually mentioned the amendment itself, which I come to now. That was just a little introduction to all these amendments. Now, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Caithness for having introduced this amendment, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, whose Amendment No. 2 is tied to it. It is entirely fair that we should consider the name of the House. In fact, I rather hope that my noble friend will consider accepting the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, which I slightly prefer to that of my noble friend. I certainly hope that my noble friend will not press his to a Division, but will consider the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
	The name of the senate conjures up certain important parallels for me. It is not just the Senates of Rome or Venice, which were in their time hugely influential bodies. We also have Senates in the United States and in Italy, and those two chambers have the most significant powers and authority of any Upper House in the world. In the past, my party has advocated the use of the word "senate" to replace a House of Lords. This is not the most essential item that we shall be discussing in this Committee, but it would probably be better to have a senate rather than the House of Lords if we are to change the method of selection to this House. That is partly because it conveys a sense of authority, and what is the purpose of all this disruption and reform if not to create a more powerful House, more able to help the other place to do its job properly, and help it to hold the Executive to account?
	It also reflects the fact that the House which we have now is already very different—in many ways arguably better, and in some ways worse—from the House that we used to have. The House that we should want to create will also differ from the House that we have now. What we have now is no longer a House of Lords; it is a House of some Lords, because, in 1999, more than 650 Peers were excluded from the House, so we have Peers outside the House and Peers who are not Members of the House of Lords.
	Although it is not grouped with Amendment No. 1, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has tabled a most interesting amendment, Amendment No. 6, which we will no doubt discuss later. That takes the logical step of separating the peerage from membership of this House. The noble Lord does not go the extra inch—or perhaps I should say "centimetre" to the modernising noble Lord, Lord Dubs—and stop calling your Lordships' House a "House of Lords". Instead, he suggests that he should be "Mr Dubs ML", which I find deeply unconvincing, but that is a debate to which we shall come later.
	As the hereditary Peers become progressively excluded from this House—the Bill removes the remaining 92, albeit over time—we can no longer reasonably retain the name "House of Lords".

Lord Higgins: Will my noble friend repeat what he just said, since I do not think that it is true?

Lord Strathclyde: I said that the Bill will, over time, remove the 92 hereditary Peers by death.

Lord Higgins: The noble Lord did not say "by death".

Lord Strathclyde: The point of the Bill is that it removes the ability of the 92 hereditary Peers to continue by removing the by-election. That was the point that I was trying to make, which I hope that my noble friend Lord Higgins has understood.
	I suppose that the problem with the "House of Lords" is that it is a 13th-century description in a 21st-century reform. It smacks rather of wanting to throw away your cake and then eating it. If we are to have a reform, it should be based on a new name and a stronger House using its powers to the full, with the full authority and confidence that that would convey. I therefore agree with my noble friend that a senate, a body that can look the other place in the eye, should be our aim, and I hope that we will consider more in debate the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, though I do not know whether he expects to press it this evening.

Lord Howarth of Newport: The noble Earl ignored in his genial remarks that there is urgent need for certain specific reforms in the interests of the dignity, reputation and good functioning of this House. The dignity and reputation of this House are in jeopardy in consequence of events with which we are all melancholily familiar, and, consequently, so is the good functioning of the House. There is widespread consensus on the suitability of the four reforms itemised in the Long Title of the Bill as tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. It would be sensible to get on with implementing those changes. The reforms proposed in the new clause tabled by the noble Earl and the whole variety of amendments that other noble Lords have tabled are interesting and important, but I venture to suggest that they are not urgent. We should get on with those matters that are urgent. We should with reasonable expedition send a properly considered Bill to the other place so that we can offer it a way in which the functioning of this part of Parliament can be improved, and the other great matters on which there is not yet consensus and which certainly will need to be addressed should take their time in due course.

Viscount Bledisloe: I, too, support what the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said, and I hope that the Committee will not be distracted from doing so by what I might describe as a knockabout comedy speech by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in his inimitable manner.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Viscount Bledisloe: "Knockabout comedy" is very flattering, I hope.
	This is a very carefully crafted Bill, which the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Norton of Louth, have prepared with great care to deal with several short-term problems which virtually everybody accepts need to be dealt with now. We do not wish to be distracted from pursuing that useful aim by vast numbers of red herrings, which have to be tackled some time, but which are not apt to be tackled now. One example of how dangerous it is to go down this route appears in Amendment No. 72, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in which he contemplates that the commission will recommend people not only for membership of this House but also for the bare honour of peerage. If so, why does it not do the same for knighthoods and all other honours? A peerage will then become an honour and have nothing to do with the commission or this House. Do let us get back to the bedrock of this Bill. These amendments and a large number of others deal with interesting topics but not with the substance of this Bill.

Viscount Astor: The noble Lord, Lord Steel, quoted from the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee report. However, he was selective in his quotes—as I will be too. On page 56 of the report, paragraph 181 says:
	"Although we have made legislative proposals, and believe that is the right way to proceed, it would be possible to achieve much of what we recommend without legislation."
	The report makes that entirely clear. The legislation is not actually necessary to implement the majority of the recommendations—and all the important ones—in the report. Your Lordships should not be bounced into dealing with this Bill faster than we normally do just because of a report that does not say legislation is necessary and which has not been considered properly by another place. I remind your Lordships that it is an extremely useful report, but it is only made up by a committee, which includes six members of the Labour Party, three Conservatives and two Liberals. That is hardly a report which has been endorsed by the other place as a whole.
	The important question we have to address to the Minister is one that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde has touched on. On Second Reading, the Minister said that the report,
	"will inform the basis of a White Paper to be produced by the Government in the New Year".
	Well, my Lords, it is the new year. He went on to say:
	"We also hope to produce draft clauses in some areas for consideration by Parliament as a whole".—[Official Report, 30/11/07; col. 1481.]
	If the Minister had said that they hoped to produce the White Paper shortly, we would know that that was a number of months away. If he had said it was imminent, we would know that it was probably six months away. However, he did actually say it would be produced in the new year. Therefore, it is possible that he meant that. I am sure he thought he meant it, even though events might have thwarted him in the mean time. It is important that the Minister tells us what the Government's attitude is.
	My final point is that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said that there were a number of points that have nothing to do with the Bill. I think that they are all to do with the Bill. It is now extremely difficult in your Lordships' House to put down amendments that are not to do with the Bill. The Clerks, quite rightly, are very precise on that. All these amendments are to do with the Bill. They may not be in the narrow world that the noble Lord wants them, but they are all part of the debate that we ought to have as this Bill proceeds through Parliament. I am very happy to sit behind my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Steel, every Friday afternoon for as long as it takes, to go through and debate all the issues that are brought up by the amendments tabled today.

Lord Desai: I missed, by some accident, the Second Reading of the noble Lord's Bill. However, I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Richard, which I like very much. The noble Lord's Bill has all the makings of what I would call an English compromise, which is one that confronts a major problem and proposes a solution which does not solve the problem but makes the solution to the problem less urgent. Everyone then forgets about it and we move on. That is why I support my noble friend's amendment.
	It is quite clear that the supporters of the Bill are somewhat desperate. The noble Lord, who was a distinguished Member of the House of Commons previously, and a democrat, proposed something in the nature of the guillotine on this Bill. I do not think that that is permissible. Nor do I wish to be told that a Select Committee in another place has told us something which we should stop all other business to implement. They can do their business and we shall do our business.
	I like my noble friend's amendment because it makes it clear that nothing in this Bill should subvert the declared will of the other place, which is for a substantially elected second Chamber.

Lord Tyler: Like the noble Lord, Lord Desai, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I am delighted to hear that Members on all sides of the Chamber seem to have real concern about the amendment proposed by the noble Earl and the group attached to it.
	The noble Earl is in some haste to make considerable progress in a backwards direction. We should be careful about moving as fast as he appears to wish us to do. Some people might say, "What's in a name?"—but surely in the House it is clear that names are very important. This whole building is about semantics. Sometimes we hear people complain that a matter that we discuss here is a matter of semantics, but words are important. I remind the Committee of the occasion when the Post Office decided to change its name to Consignia, which some of us thought would mean that it would actually modernise its practices and offer a better service to the country: far from it, nothing of the sort. Very soon afterwards, the Post Office had to revert to its previous name. What is serious about the noble Earl's amendment is that it will give an impression that there has been a radical change in the role and responsibility of the House, when that is obviously not the case. In that sense, it is wholly premature.
	Reference has already been made to the report by the Select Committee in the other place, and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, rightly drew our attention to a particular paragraph. I endorse a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde: this is an issue of considerable importance to this House. Not only has the other place not discussed this report yet and not only has there been no response to it yet from the Government, but it is hot off the press with regard to this House. I wonder how many noble Lords, if I asked them, could say that they had read all 150 pages of the report and evidence; I suspect that some of us would have to admit that we have only skimmed through it. It is obviously premature that we should look at that issue raised in the report, even when it is not intended that it should comprise legislative proposals, merely small changes. The noble Earl's amendment, Amendment No. 72, talks in terms of a divergence of the membership of this legislature from the peerage. That is a completely new issue that is totally outwith the Bill proposed by my noble friend Lord Steel, and I very much appreciate what he said just now. It would be extraordinary if we went down that path without a great deal more careful consideration in this House.
	Other issues still await the complete and comprehensive reform proposals that we are looking to hear about from the Minister in a few minutes' time. I take one example, hot from the press today: the Senior Salaries Review Body issued a statement of which I have only the BBC's analysis and summary, but it is of relevance. It is headed, "Some Lords 'would like sick pay'". I do not know which Members of the House made that suggestion to the SSRB, but it is relevant to this debate that the SSRB, as the BBC summary reports, says:
	"Any 'fundamental' changes to the system of allowances should be considered as part of wider reforms of the Lords and not before".
	That is yet another way in which we in this House must clearly realise that there is no way in which tinkering with the issues will assist the real comprehensive reform to which we all look forward.
	There are, in the amendments, some other matters to which the noble Earl may not yet have given his attention. I take one at random; it may interest the right reverend Prelate, who is on the Bishops' Bench. It is suggested by the noble Earl that, in future, we are all to be called senators in a fully appointed House. Are the Bishops to be called senators? I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Goodhart, who had to leave the Chamber just now. The role of the Bishops in the House is completely missed by the amendments.

Lord Trefgarne: There are later amendments.

Lord Tyler: Indeed, there are later amendments. I accept the note of caution.
	These are premature amendments. I hope that there will be a general feeling throughout the Committee that that is the case. I am relieved to hear that my noble friend Lord Steel and his colleagues who promote the Bill also feel that this is inappropriate for this Bill. He and his colleagues have, on so many occasions, referred to the Bill as transitional, incremental and as dealing with short-term problems. In this House, short-term problems seem to me, as a comparative newcomer, sometimes to stretch over decades. Even given that, it would be wrong to include this amendment in this Bill.
	The issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has already said, is that we are expecting very soon a White Paper from the Government, after years of digestion of the issues. I hope that the noble Lord will tell us what "the new year" means in this context. Is it early spring, mid-spring or Cornish spring, which is earlier than spring everywhere else in the country? I hope that we will see the White Paper in March. I further hope—I hope that the Minister, when he responds, will give us some indication—that, when it comes, there will indeed be draft clauses for pre-legislative scrutiny. I hope that they will be submitted to a Joint Committee for that pre-legislative scrutiny. In this House, we all recognise that ignorance of the way in which the two Houses co-operate is manifest. It was certainly true when I was serving in the other place. Therefore, it would be really helpful if, when those draft clauses come forward, they are subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by both Houses.
	My noble friend Lord Steel thought that the fact that Ken Clarke, with whom I have worked on these issues, did not expect to see the full comprehensive reform in his lifetime was a good reason for making rapid progress in some directions. I would simply say that new Clause 1 is the wrong direction in which to make rapid progress. I hope that the Committee will endorse the general view expressed in Amendment No. 2, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Richard.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: If a Member introduces a Bill, it should be debated properly. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, has put down an interesting Bill, to which noble Lords are entitled to table amendments. It is wrong for some noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Bledisloe, to try to close down discussion on the issue.
	We are dealing now with Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, which are related to each other. In my rather curious position as a recycled Peer in this establishment—recycled inasmuch as I am here by quasi-democratic situation, as an elected hereditary Peer—I support the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. It is interesting that the new body should be called a senate, with senators; he is quite right, and I hope that that will happen in due course. He is also right to say that there should be a de-linking of the peerage and the legislature. I hope that these things will happen in the fullness of time.
	By the same token, I entirely agree with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Richard: it is sometimes entirely for the House of Commons to decide these issues. We wait with bated breath for these famous proposals to come forward. We are, inevitably, a revising Chamber, but we need to change. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, made that entirely clear. He is right to say that we should have democracy. If we believe in democracy in this House, or in this country, we should start to practise it. It is no good us going around the world pontificating about democracy if we do not practise it ourselves. The Bill and the whole reform of the House of Lords are predicated on that, which is why I support also the amendment very cogently argued by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and I hope that the debate will continue properly in the order which has been taken. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, is right: if the noble Lord, Lord Steel, decides to occupy Fridays on the issue, he is entitled to do so, and it would be a legitimate thing to do. If he does, I shall certainly come here to discuss with other noble Lords, because the future of the House is of great importance to the nation as a whole.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: I—

Noble Lords: The Minister!

Noble Lords: Howe!

Lord Howe of Aberavon: I think that probably inclined in my direction.
	The interesting contribution made by the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, adds yet another piece of timber to the increasingly complicated pile that is now before us. I think that we should go back to the approach made by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, fortified as it now is by his colleague the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. It has grieved me a great deal to see a great historic party—the Liberal party—diminished as it is, as divided as it has been on so many questions. But it seems to me that we now have the glimmering of an agreement, because they are both saying that propositions of the kind promoted by the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, are running ahead of the game.
	We should address the real thing: the four propositions, as summarised in the Title, have an intrinsic merit of their own. They are almost all built on analyses put before the House in a series of reports. None of them can really be challenged on its merits. They are all improvements of an existing state of affairs. As the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has emphasised many times, it is a step forward and, to that extent, it may or may not be a transition. But at least, it is something that coherently and comprehensively propounds four changes that would help the House to gain in authority, to work better and to remove certain anomalies that should be removed. We should be delighted to commend the two young and sparkling members of the Liberal party, the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Steel. I am all for it. Three cheers for this astonishing alliance.

Baroness Quin: Like the mover of the amendment, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I was not able to be present at Second Reading, but I read the account of the debate, and I have listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has said today.
	I note that the noble Lord has said once again that this is a limited Bill and a sensible measure. While there are many things with which I agree, I remain somewhat suspicious of the description of it as a limited Bill. That is partly because of the distinguished career of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, himself. He has not really been well known for introducing small, insignificant Bills in his career. I feel that many people who support the Bill do so partly because they agree with it but also partly because they hope that it will kick into the long grass any other reform of the House of Lords, including electing it. For that reason, I remain somewhat suspicious of the Bill, despite the fact that I agree with many points in it.
	The noble Lord, Lord Steel, also pointed out that many of the amendments seemed to go wide of the Bill. In that sense, I agree with him. When the Bill was put forward, the matters that were concentrated on at Second Reading were more limited than many of the amendments before us today. None the less, the Title of the Bill is the "House of Lords Bill", and, as has been pointed out by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, amendments would not have been accepted if they had not been valid.
	Despite the important issues that many of the amendments raise—they should be given an airing—there are in the Bill many aspects that people would want to consider in a lot of detail. It is difficult, on the face of it, to understand the rationale behind many of the details, for example the proposal that at least four of the members of the Appointments Commission should be privy counsellors. I am not sure why that is. Those are the kinds of detailed issues in which people have a valid interest.
	The noble Lord appealed to us to be expeditious, and one of the good aspects of this House is that it does not go in for filibustering. Despite the public image at times of elderly Members of the House of Lords wittering on, in fact most Members of the House seem to speak with admirable succinctness. I hope that I shall be one of that number. Nevertheless, there are many details in the Bill that it would be wrong to gloss over in a too-hasty consideration. For that reason, although I understand the noble Lord's desire not to go too wide and deal with matters that are not the Bill's main focus, there is every reason to give the Bill proper, thorough scrutiny.

Lord Elis-Thomas: I speak in support of Amendment No. 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and to emphasise that in my experience of constitutional reform there are a number of requirements for such progress. It is never a good case that the constitutional reform is undertaken by those who themselves are to be reformed, because that does not result in an appropriate constitutional context for that activity. Constitutional reform has to proceed by a consensus and understanding of the process. Perhaps the most pertinent point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who emphasised the importance of pre-legislative scrutiny for any sensible discussion about the reform of this House and the relationship between this House, the House of Commons and other assemblies within these islands.
	We cannot proceed effectively through a reform of this House by seeking to produce a Bill of our own making that we then present to the House of Commons as a package and say, "This is what we want done to ourselves; please can we have your support?". That seems to be a totally impossible avenue, especially given the history of the issue over the centuries, as we have heard.
	I therefore support strongly the emphasis in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that a proper report has to come from the Government based on an indication of the policy of the UK Government and the support of the House of Commons. I do not see how it is possible to proceed without that. As part of that, I also argue that the time has come to take the debate into a much more serious pre-legislative scrutiny than perhaps we have normally for legislation in both Houses of the UK Parliament. That is to open up the matter to a proper public discussion of the role of the upper Chamber of the United Kingdom Parliament.
	We have had reports from Government, but we have not had the proper democratic dialogue about what the House could and should do. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, presents us with the opportunity that any report emanating from the Secretary of State should be the subject of a proper public scrutiny. By that I do not mean a No. 10 website into which people send e-mails. I mean proper electronic consultation and debate throughout the kingdom about the role of this House and then perhaps there can emerge a public consensus about what a 21st century second Chamber looks like in the context of the United Kingdom. I hate to disagree among the college of retired or about-to-be retired presiding officers of assemblies in these islands, but the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is premature in the matter.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: Colleagues have spoken tonight about missing the Second Reading debate. I go back to the Second Reading debate that took place in 1998. When I spoke on the second night I spoke as speaker 223 out of 240 people and I spoke at 2.20 am.
	I have been in this House for 23 years. When I came here I was imbued by my early belief, as a Labour politician, that the solution was to abolish the House of Lords, not fully appreciating that, "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it" that counts. What we and many people in the country really want is a changed Second Chamber. Today we are debating how we get to that situation. I am all in favour of what I call the conspiracy theory. The first stage did not come about as a result of an open, democratic discussion but as the result of a deal done behind the Speaker's Chair; in other words, the deal was produced from discussions between the Leader of the Opposition and the then Lord Chancellor and led to the Bill.
	For the life of me, I have tried to understand the need for urgency in this matter. I do not dispute the motives of anyone, not least, of course, those of my long-time friend the noble Lord, Lord Steel. Many Members have imbued their speeches today with impatience that some things can be done. I simply ask the House to bear in mind the major happenings in the recent past. There were the votes in the Commons, which came out firmly, although not all-party but substantially across the House, in favour of a Second Chamber that was either wholly elected or majority elected.

Lord Gordon of Strathblane: I thank my noble friend for giving way. It might be quite important early on to nail that point. With the greatest respect to the party of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, it is notable that in that vote a majority of Labour Peers voted against 80 per cent election and even more remarkably, considering it was in their election manifesto, a majority of Conservative MPs voted against it. So the idea that somehow the House of Commons has given a clear signal is very wide of the mark.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: I hear what my noble friend says. That is his interpretation of the vote. In a democracy, it is the vote that counts and on that night the vote in the Commons, on the options available, turned out that way. I understand the mess they got into the previous time when they had seven options and they did not agree with any of them. I am not making a meal out of the Commons' decision but let us envisage that this Bill, either as it is or when it is amended, goes to the other place. What kind of reception will it get? We are talking about valuable parliamentary time. Looking the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and others in the face, I believe that we are being very indulgent. I believe that we all know that this will not be resolved unless and until we have, from the Government, after open or secret discussions, something that they believe has the chance of being carried.
	The noble Lord, Lord Steel, with support from other Benches, is talking about cutting out from our debates extraneous matters. However, for those who table them, they are not extraneous; they are absolutely central to what they want, although I do not want them. Quite frankly, my experience tells me that we need to await the next time, which I hope will not be too long—I think it will be in not this Parliament but the next—when all parties nail their flags to a combined mast and they go to the country and the issue is carried. When that comes to the Commons and to the Lords, I hope that there is agreement. It will not be easy or quick.
	This House has the opportunity—I hope it is not futile—to examine ways in which the House might be improved. I support my noble friend's amendment but I am pessimistic enough to believe that nothing we do in this Chamber will achieve anything until we get the Government—after full discussion, whether secret or not—to say, "This is the considered view of both Houses".

Earl Ferrers: I do not often agree with the noble Lord, Lord Graham, but I do on the limited issue that this is neither the right time nor the right place to start monumental alterations to the constitution. When I saw the list of amendments, I thought, "Goodness gracious, here we go again". It is fine for the noble Lord, Lord Steel, to ask, "Do we want to discuss all these extraneous items?" but he only wants to discuss the things he would like. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, is quite right—these are not extraneous items. When I first saw these amendments I thought that my noble friend Lord Caithness—I regret to say that I was absent during his speech—had taken leave of his senses. I do not know whether his senses have caught up with him—I think they probably have. Then I saw what he meant; if you remove what used to be called Peers and you are left with an appointed Chamber why should you call it the House of Lords? There will be no Lords there. This perfectly good argument is particularly germane to this Bill.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that we need change in order to preserve the dignity of the House. That is the most absurd suggestion. You have only to listen to what was said about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill—it was absolutely amazing. The standards of debate here exceed those in any other Chamber in the world. To say, therefore, that we need to increase our dignity is absurd.
	We are in danger of forgetting that the dignity of the House of Lords is very high. Some people get injected with the idea of change—that we must have change. In order to find a reason for change they say, "Let's improve the dignity". I do not support that argument.
	This is not a suitable subject for a Private Member's Bill. I have always thought that. It is all very well the noble Lord, Lord Steel, saying, "Let's decide the amendments we would like to decide". That is not the way to handle Bills—heaven knows, he ought to know that. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said we were looking forward to reform and that the promoters do not like some of these amendments. It does not matter what the promoters like. Once you let this cat out of the bag it attaches itself to all sorts of things and other things get attached to it. If this Bill were ever to get to the House of Commons, it is open season for anything to get changed there.
	I do not like either of the amendments and I do not like the substance of the Bill. I do, however, think it is wrong to introduce this Bill in this way; it ought to be a Government Bill.

The Earl of Sandwich: I want to respond in one sentence to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, who spoke of the desire of some of the promoters of the Bill to extend the long grass. A growing number of us believe that this government White Paper is already in the long grass and that it will never happen. Increasing numbers of us want limited and radical reform and they simply do not believe anything that the Minister is about to say.

Lord Trefgarne: I have never been opposed to reform of the House of Lords. In fact, my views are not far removed from those of my noble friends Lord Strathclyde and Lord Caithness. However, the Bill sets in place an appointed House for many years into the future, and we are therefore entitled to consider how the appointments might be made and whether the Bishops might all be Members of the House in the future. Therefore, I am very sorry to have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that I have no intention of withdrawing my amendments; indeed, I must warn him that I have many more to table if, as I expect, we do not reach the bit on Bishops tonight. That would be a very important change to the composition of your Lordships' House. I happen to be in favour of the leaders of other religious faiths becoming Members of the House, together with various other people, so I am afraid that I can offer the noble Lord, Lord Steel, no comfort in that regard.
	As my noble friend Lord Ferrers made clear, once the cat is out of the bag, we can, and should—it is our duty—seek to amend the Bill if we think that it is right to do so. I think that it is right to amend it if it is to go forward, and I should also be in favour of ensuring that the Government honour the undertakings that they gave about the by-elections for hereditary Peers. However, although that is important, it is not the main issue for me. The Bill sets in place and enshrines an appointed House. That may be what a number of noble Lords want. If so, so be it, but in that case let us get the arrangements for the appointments right.
	So far as concerns this amendment, I am rather in favour of calling the House a senate. I am much attracted to the United States model and this might be the first step in that direction. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord's amendment will be considered carefully and perhaps agreed.

Viscount Goschen: I sympathise with the frustration felt by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, who wants to proceed very quickly with his Bill. I certainly recall sitting up at two in the morning, next to my noble friend Lord Ullswater, trying to do exactly the same with government employment Bills but I found that several noble Lords, including two very distinguished members of the party opposite, took up many hours of your Lordships' time expanding the Bill into areas that they thought were highly relevant.
	Therefore, I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Steel, but I cannot in any way agree with him. He has reopened Pandora's box for the nth time in terms of House of Lords reform, which, as we know, is an immensely complex area. He cannot expect the House to concentrate on the areas that he wants to see advanced quickly. Here, we are talking about an attempt to decouple or remove certain very important areas from the overall subject of House of Lords reform to produce a special Bill and advance those areas. I do not believe that it is possible to do that without considering the other, wider issues. The House is being tolerant in considering a Private Member's Bill on a matter of extreme importance to the overall constitutional settlement of the country, and it is entirely appropriate that, if the tabling of amendments is allowed by the Clerks at the Table, they should be considered fully.

Baroness Thornton: I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Richard. Being in the business broadly known as communications and PR, I can say to the noble Earl that it is a rule that you do not rebrand something unless you fundamentally change the product in a way that matches the rebranding. That is why I support my noble friend.
	I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde; I do not think that I have ever previously uttered those words in your Lordships' House. He said, in what I thought was a witty speech, that we need to discuss the report of the Select Committee in another place and, more importantly, another place needs to discuss that report. I am fairly sure that Members of another place, particularly honourable friends of mine, will be as pungent in their remarks and as determined in their views as they have already been about the need to reform this House.
	I agree with the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, who said on Second Reading at col. 1438 that a Private Member's Bill is an unsuitable place to discuss such a grave constitutional matter. I agree with that. The number and range of amendments tabled on this Private Member's Bill completely bears out what she said. However, I want to record my support for my noble friend's amendment. We need to wait for the White Paper and take time to consider those very important matters before we reach a view.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I am conscious that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, will not believe a word that I am going to say, but I shall plough on none the less.
	I shall respond to a number of questions that noble Lords have asked me. On the question of the Government's attitude toward the Bill, there is nothing more that I can say than was said at Second Reading: this is a Private Member's Bill; it will proceed through your Lordships' House as would any Private Member's Bill.
	I also refer to the report of House Of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, to which several noble Lords have referred. It is a very interesting report. It proposes an interim measure, including, as I understand it, changing the name of your Lordships' House and detaching membership from the peerage.
	The position is very clear. The Government have a responsibility to consider the report and respond. We will do so in due course. I cannot give the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, an exact date by which we will do so, but I assure him that we will do so as soon as we can.

Lord Higgins: Will the Government respond before the White Paper is published?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: That is a very clever question from a very clever Member of your Lordships' House. Of course, I am not going to answer. I was just about to come onto the question of timing. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, asked me to define the new year. All that I will say about the Select Committee report is that discussions are going on within government about our response. We will respond as soon as we can. On the definition of the new year, I concede that, in my previous incarnations in both the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions, the definition of the new year was somewhat elastic. I am now in the Ministry of Justice, where, as yet, I do not think that as yet we have come to define the new year.
	I can talk in general about the progress that has been made within the Joint Working Group which has been established in the light of the votes in both Houses last year. I believe that good progress is being made. We intend to meet several times over the next few weeks. It would be very foolish of me to give a definite date as to when the White Paper will be published but, obviously, we want it to be done as soon as possible.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Before my noble friend leaves the subject of the Joint Working Group, will he indicate whether the Government are prepared to reconsider their decision not to publish the minutes of the meetings that have already been held so that this debate can be held in a much more open way and we know what our respective Front-Benchers are saying?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I think that my noble friend has made a number of requests to my department on this matter and they are still being considered with great care. On the question of the work of the working group, it is comprised of the leadership of the political parties, with representation also from the bishops and the Cross-Benchers. As for the intense discussion about the development of a White Paper, that is best done within the confines of that working group. As regards a dialogue between me, the group, and other members of the Government who are on that group, we are always willing to discuss with Members of your Lordships' House, and with groups of Members, the whole question of the White Paper and the reform process. We remain able to do so. However, given all that has been said about the inevitable challenge of Lords reform, it is important that, within that group, there can be discussions that enable us to come to as wide a consensus as possible.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: Given what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was just saying about his search for the widest consensus possible, can he reaffirm what he said a moment or two ago, that the working group is considering this matter in the light of the votes of both Houses? Will he give some kind of assurance that the votes of this House, not wholly represented by the leadership serving on the committee, will be taken fully into account? Probably the most important proposition he has spoken so far is "in the light of the votes of both Houses".

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Of course the working group is considering the discussions on reform in your Lordships' House in the light of the votes of both Houses. However, I have to say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, for whom I have great respect, that the critical vote took place in the House of Commons, which all noble Lords in discussing Lords reform in general have acknowledged in terms of primacy. We are moving ahead in those discussions—and, eventually, I hope in the White Paper—on the basis of an elected second Chamber and of the two options for which the House of Commons voted: 80 per cent and 100 per cent.
	I have been asked about the commitment made by my noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg. He said that until the second stage of House of Lords reform had taken place, the amendment that he was addressing,
	"reflects a compromise negotiated between Privy Counsellors on Privy Council terms and binding in honour on all those who have come to give it their assent".
	He later went on to say:
	"But the 10 per cent will go only when stage two has taken place. So it is guaranteed that it will take place".—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]
	I might add that because this matter was debated in the other place on 7 March 2007—

Lord Norton of Louth: The Minister has given the commitment in government terms, which was to preserve the 10 per cent. It was not to preserve a by-election option.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: There can be argument about whether an amendment that in time reduces that 10 per cent is actually a departure. It would be interesting to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Steel, when he winds up this debate, about his own attitude to what has come to be known as the Irvine agreement. I shall repeat what my right honourable friend, now the Lord Chancellor but then the Leader of the House, said in the other place on 7 March 2007:
	"For the avoidance of doubt, I spoke to my noble Friend, the former Lord Chancellor, this morning, and he authorised me to say that the passage in the White Paper, at paragraphs 3.27 and 3.28, is a correct summary of the position. He went on to say, and I am authorised to repeat, that what was agreed in 1999 implied no guarantee of any particular stage 2. It was just a guarantee that there would be a legislative stage 2. Before the Front Benchers jump up, the reason for that is that the commitment was made even before the royal commission had reported"—
	that was the royal commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham—
	"and still less before there had been White Papers, Public Administration reports and so on. We are not seeking to play a trick on hon. Members; we accept that the removal of the hereditaries should take place in the context of a Bill that reflects the views of this House, as expressed in the votes today, the views subsequently expressed by those in the other place, and any agreement that we can reach. As a matter of historical record, it is simply not the case that what was said in the other place was linked to the inclusion of elected Members in the House of Lords".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/3/07; cols. 1597-98.]
	I think that that states the position clearly.
	I will make one or two comments on the specifics of the amendments that we are debating. I have always looked forward to being the senior senator from Birmingham. As far as the Government are concerned, the February 2007 White Paper, in paragraph 9.42, states:
	"For the time being, the future House of Lords will be referred to as the 'reformed chamber' but we will consult on the name in the lead up to legislation. Decisions on the name will partly depend on what final decisions Parliament reaches on composition. That was the approach adopted by the Wakeham Commission".
	That remains the position.
	The debate on whether "senate" is an appropriate name is interesting and very helpful in terms of what the eventual decision would mean, but I would caution the House about senates. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, wished to use the Senate of the United States as a model. There is general consensus that the primacy of the Commons should remain and that the second Chamber, whether 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected, should be a revising Chamber. One should adopt a degree of caution in choosing a name that appropriately reflects the fact that it is a revising Chamber. I say that not to preclude any wide debate about the name in future.

Earl Ferrers: Does the noble Lord agree that if you have an 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected second Chamber, you cannot tell it that it will be subservient to another place?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Now we are into an important debate. It is entirely proper for the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, to raise that, and there will be different views. It is entirely proper for the working group to discuss this, and one hopes that the conclusions will be in the White Paper. But I say to the noble Earl that the Parliament Acts themselves are the enshrinement of the primacy of the Commons.

Lord Strabolgi: The last White Paper clearly says that in the event of reform, Members of this House would not be allowed to stand for membership of the House of Commons. It is silent on what Members of this House would be allowed to do in a reformed Chamber. Will they be able to stand as senators, or whatever we call them, in a reformed Chamber? Will my noble friend make sure that something like that is put clearly in the next White Paper?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I am very happy to accept that—it is a very helpful intervention.

Lord Northbrook: Will the Back Benches be deprived of an active committee on the future of the House?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The establishment of a committee is entirely in the hands of the House and individual Members. If a committee—or committees, given that there is more than one view on Lords reform—is established, the Government have said that they are happy to come before it. I enjoyed a very engaging interrogation by Sir Patrick Cormack's committee just a few weeks ago. I am entirely relaxed about going through that again and appearing before any committee established in your Lordships' House.

Lord Tyler: Before the Minister sits down, will he respond to the specific point about pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed draft clauses? I accept the point that this is to an extent up to the business managers of both the other place and your Lordships' House, but I do not think that the Minister is so naïve as to suppose that they might not be influenced by the attitude of the Government. Is the Government's intention that the draft clauses might be given pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee so that both Houses could contribute to the process at the same time?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: We have said that we hope it will be possible following the White Paper to produce some draft clauses. That is as far as we have gone. I take the helpful suggestion of the noble Lord, which can be considered, but no decision on this has been made. However, I am sure that publishing draft clauses at some stage would be helpful. Further, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that frustrating as these debates may be, the fact is that whatever progress his own Bill makes, teasing out some of these matters could in itself be seen as a form of pre-legislative scrutiny.

Lord Richard: I confess that I am a little lost so far as the procedure is concerned at the moment. Normally, once the Minister has made his views clear, the Committee can proceed to a decision or not as the case may be. I have tabled an amendment to a new clause to the Bill proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and I assume that I should now sum up my views on the amendment, and then the noble Earl will sum up his views on the new clause.

The Earl of Caithness: Would it not be a good idea for the noble Lord, Lord Steel, to comment on these amendments? I do not think has yet done so. He has talked generally about the group of amendments, but he has not spoken specifically to either the noble Lord's amendment or mine.

Lord Richard: If the noble Earl is asking my view on that, the answer is no, quite firmly and definitely no. There is one simple reason for that response. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, intervened in the debate. He was entitled to make a speech and he did so. If in the course of that speech he did not see fit to address the amendments before the Committee, with great respect, he cannot now come back on them.

Noble Lords: Hear, hear!

Lord Richard: I am delighted to see so many nods of agreement on the other side of the Committee.

Earl Ferrers: Of course the noble Lord, Lord Steel, can come back and speak to the amendments. This is the Committee stage and anyone can speak as often as they like. Incidentally, they do not always have to say, "Before the noble Lord sits down".

Lord Richard: I stand corrected. The noble Earl is absolutely right. This is a free-for-all where anyone can speak as often as they like until, I suppose, the debate expires.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It might be helpful if anyone speaking in this debate were to speak to the amendment, which I thought my noble friend Lord Richard was inviting the noble Lord, Lord Steel, to do.

Lord Richard: It is a pity that my noble friend Lord McIntosh was not here a little earlier on. If he had been in his place an hour and a half ago, he would have heard the speech that I made proposing my amendment in which I made the enormous mistake, as it turns out, of speaking to the amendment and not to the generality of the argument. This has been a fascinating debate on the general arguments, which we have been round and round and round, and we will go around them again in this Bill.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that he cannot have it both ways. If he produces a Bill that was bound to be controversial, and which he knew would be once it is in the public domain, any noble Lord would be entitled to table amendments to it and to have them discussed. If the amendments were not in order, I have no doubt that the excellent Clerks at the Table would not have allowed us to put them down. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, cannot now say, "Oh gosh, isn't it terrible? You want to discuss things which I don't want to discuss. I merely want to discuss the things that I want to discuss". That is not on.
	In the circumstances, I have considered carefully what to do with the amendment. It is a clear and simple proposal that there should be some input from the Secretary of State and the House of Commons before we move to a change to the name of this House. On any view of the matter, that is a sensible way to proceed. I have thought very hard about whether I should seek a vote on the amendment, and in the end I have decided not to. But I give warning to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the promoters of the Bill that I shall return to this subject at a future stage, if there ever is one. But I do not think that there will be.

Baroness Hayman: Is it your Lordships' pleasure that the amendment be withdrawn?
	On Question, Amendment No. 2, as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, negatived.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: I am now totally confused. There are some Members who desperately do not want me to speak and others who are desperately urging me to speak. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, understated the issue when he said that I had let a cat out of the bag. It would appear that I have let a whole herd of cats out of a whole lot of bags this afternoon.
	The noble Lord, Lord Richard, chided me for not addressing the amendments, but I return to the point that I made at the beginning: the Bill is not a whim of mine. Various people have said that I want the House to debate the things that I want to debate. Not at all. The Bill, which has very narrow and specific purposes, is the result of work done by many Members of the House, of whom I am merely the spokesman. Way back in the first Second Reading that we had in July, people thought I was making a joke when I said that the reason I was the spokesman was that I missed the meeting at which that decision was taken. It was not a joke; it was absolutely true. I am simply the servant of a large group of Members who feel that there are four issues which do not brook further delay.
	In light of the trouble that we have had recently on cash for peerages—a problem which has afflicted all three parties for a very long time and about which the public are extremely annoyed—the first issue is whether we should deal with the creation of a statutory appointments commission. The Conservative reform task group has said yes, the Government have indicated that they are in favour of it, the Select Committee in the other House has now said it is in favour of it, and on that narrow point we have put this forward in the Bill to deal with the cash for peerages question.
	The second issue is the hereditary by-elections and I shall respond immediately to what the Minister asked me. I consider that the undertaking given about retaining the hereditary Peers is important, but I do not think it applies to the amendment. I think the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, was correct when he said that it did not apply to the issue of the by-elections. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred to the dignity of the House. I do not see how it impresses the public or increases the dignity of the House to have people coming into the House because they are hereditary Peers elected by two or three other people. That simply will not wash in this day and age.

Lord Trefgarne: I wish to make what I understand to be the position on the by-elections absolutely clear. In 1999 an agreement was reached by the present noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury—the then Viscount Cranborne—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg. The agreement was that there would be 92 hereditary Peers in the House until such time as stage two of the reform was complete. In order to ensure that 92 remains the correct number, there have to be by-elections for that purpose. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, has confirmed that the by-elections were part of the agreement.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: I am a bit confused. Is the noble Lord replying to Amendment No. 1, or what is he doing?

Lord Steel of Aikwood: I am attempting to reply to Amendment No. 1. I am explaining why I invite the House to reject Amendment No. 1 and to reject all amendments which fall outside the narrow scope of the Bill. That is not to say the amendments are improper or in any way unconstitutional; of course they are not. They all have interesting topics and, as I have indicated to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I am in favour of many of them. But they are not within the narrow confine of the Bill, and if the Bill is to have any chance of succeeding we have to restrict ourselves to the subjects of the Bill. If we go wider, frankly, the Bill is dead in the water. It will not go anywhere. We are not going to come here every Friday for the whole of this Session to discuss this issue to the exclusion of everything else; that is simply unrealistic. We have to decide this in facing this first amendment, which falls outside the narrow purposes of the Bill.
	I was in the middle of describing what those narrow purposes are and reminding the House that the hereditary by-elections came into being as a result of an amendment—the Weatherill amendment—to the agreement that had been made. It was not part of the original agreement to retain the hereditary Members, and the by-election system has been crude and unacceptable. It has lasted much longer than was foreshadowed at the time.
	The third part of the Bill—

Lord Howarth of Newport: I am grateful to the noble Lord. Does he agree that it might reasonably be argued that the measures in his Bill would constitute stage 2 of reform, which would not be to preclude a further stage 3?

Lord Steel of Aikwood: That is a very fair point, but the issue of the hereditary by-elections is quite an important one. The question is whether we still believe that Members should enter this House by virtue of heredity. I do not believe that in this day and age public opinion believes that is right, and the other Chamber of Parliament certainly does not. It is an important issue.
	The third part of the Bill deals with the ability of Members to retire from the House permanently. It deals with both reducing the numbers of the House, which is desirable, and reducing our average age. The fourth and minor part, which no one has touched on today and is not all that important, is simply to bring this House into line with the other House in saying that those who transgress the law, to the extent of suffering a year in prison, should not be lawmakers.
	Those are four very specific, narrow, limited points, on which there could be many amendments. Amendment No. 1, however, like many others, falls well outside the Bill. For that reason I beg the House to reject it and all others like it, otherwise the Bill will be going nowhere.

Viscount Astor: Will the noble Lord accept that the amendment cannot fall outside the Bill? It has been accepted by the Clerks and put before your Lordships.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: I have already dealt with that point. I am not suggesting that the amendments are in any way improper or that they are out of order; I am simply saying that they are outside the narrow scope of the intention behind the Bill. If we go on pressing those amendments—

Lord Denham: I—

Lord Steel of Aikwood: Let me just finish the sentence, then I will give way. If we go on pressing such amendments, the Bill is not going anywhere. That is the point.

Lord Denham: The noble Lord, Lord Steel, has probably not yet realised that the scope of a Bill in this House is wider than it is in another place. The scope in this House is whether an issue is covered by the Long Title of the Bill. Anything that is within the terms of the Long Title is within the scope of the Bill.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: I could not disagree with the noble Lord. It is exactly the same in the House of Commons. "For connected purposes" covers everything. A herd of cats could run through this Chamber for the whole of this Session if noble Lords wanted, and there is nothing we could do to stop it. All I am saying is that the reality is that either we confine ourselves to the four purposes of the Bill or we do not, and if we do not the Bill is going nowhere. For that reason, I oppose the amendment.

Earl Ferrers: The noble Lord, Lord Steel, said in his opening speech that it all depends on whether we are going to confine amendments to the four purposes of the Bill. He has now said it again with great emphasis. I think he is wrong. As has been said by many people, if the Bill is put down then amendments can be put to it and they are perfectly justified. If you take the noble Lord's view, who is going to decide what is within the narrow confines and what is just outside them? I suppose it would be the noble Lord, Lord Steel—but that is a very bad way of conducting a Committee stage.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: I think it is perfectly obvious which amendments fall within the scope of the four purposes of the Bill and which are new matters that have been brought in. Those new matters are certainly connected to House of Lords reform in general, I do not dispute that, but the minute we go wider than these four points, the Bill cannot realistically proceed through to the other place. That is what I hope to achieve. If the House disagrees, we can go on discussing amendments about the number of Bishops, separating peerages from honours and so on for ever more.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, argued that the change that had taken place since Second Reading was the Administration Committee's report. Would he not agree that that report goes wider than the four issues that he is endeavouring to ensure that we stick to within this Committee? Therefore, if he calls that report in aid, surely he should be prepared to accept that we go wider than the four issues.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: I quite accept that the report deals with issues other than those in the Bill. All I am saying is that it gives support to the issues in the Bill, and is thus quite a hopeful sign.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: Could I ask the noble Lord—

Lord Bach: If the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, will forgive me, it may be the feeling of the Committee that, although we are in Committee and the noble Lord is absolutely entitled to intervene, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, should tell Members what he intends to do with Amendment No. 1.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: I am sorry, but may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Steel, something that arose the last time around that I do not really understand? Does it come to this? The noble Lord said that the Bill will go nowhere if we do not do something. That "something" was to deal with a series of amendments that the Table has accepted as relevant to the Bill. Well, we cannot do that.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: It is entirely up to the Committee, as I have explained over and over again. Either we stick to the four purposes of the Bill, or we enlarge it on to other areas, which is perfectly proper. I am not saying that it is improper. The noble Earl is perfectly entitled to put forward an amendment to change the name of the House, but it is not part of the original purpose for which I was asked to speak in putting forward this Bill. If we go on addressing amendments of that wider kind, then we are simply not going to get the Bill through.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: Can I take the great risk, as a really non-procedural character within the House, of recalling that a feature of which we are most proud is that we are a self-regulating House? I think that what the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is really saying is that he cannot challenge the fact that the amendments are all there. They are within the connected purposes, and the Clerks have allowed them to be tabled. If we deal with them all as a mountain of additions, which they could be, to the Christmas tree that we are already considering then it is quite clear that, in reality, the Bill will get nowhere. It will not finish within the time available.
	What happens depends on how the Committee regulates itself. If everybody responds that way to the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and refrains from discussing all the amendments on the Marshalled List, then we might have a chance of making it. I get the impression that it is fairly unlikely that all those who put their labour into drafting these amendments, and putting them on the Marshalled List, will wish to restrain themselves in that way, but the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is probably quite right to say that the Bill will get nowhere. It depends entirely on how we all behave, which is the thing that we are most proud of.

The Earl of Caithness: I first thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, but I will pose one question to the Minister. He needs to answer the question absolutely clearly, and on the record, that his noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport posed to him. Does the Minister consider this Bill to be a stage 2?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: As I said when I repeated my right honourable friend's statement, no definition has ever been given of stage 2. What is clear is that last February's White Paper led to votes in both Houses. The Government then decided to go through a procedure of establishing a joint working group that will lead, we hope, to the publication of a White Paper and an expectation that party manifestos at the next election will reflect as broad a consensus as possible. There would then be legislation. That is the best definition that I can give of stage 2.

The Earl of Caithness: I am grateful for that, as it comes as close to being a yes as the Minister can give without saying so. Unless he wants to contradict me, I take it that this Bill is not a stage 2 in the eyes of the Government.
	The noble Lord, Lord Richard, who withdrew his amendment, was absolutely right: he did not like my amendment, because my new clause would pre-empt the White Paper. However, this Bill pre-empts the White Paper—that is what is so utterly wrong. I would not have an amendment if we did not have the Bill. I therefore understand his amendment and rather support it.
	The nub of our debate is the point of my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. He did not like Amendment No. 1, because the composition of the House was being challenged, which broke the spirit of the Cranborne deal. A lot has been said about the Cranborne deal. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, supported by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, said that the election for hereditary Peers was not part of the original deal. In the very short time since he said that, I have tried to do some research. I happen to have with me a Library Note on the Weatherill amendment. It quotes Viscount Cranborne—now the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury—who said that,
	"if events prevented stage two from coming about, at least the noble Lord's amendment would have made stage one a marginally better change than the Government's original proposal. In that context, I have to say that the outside chance—I hope that it is only a very outside chance—that stage one may last rather longer than the noble and learned Lord and I would like means that by-elections after the next general election would be an extremely helpful reassurance for those of us who would like the Government to get on with stage two".—[Official Report, 30/3/99; cols. 221-22.]
	It was therefore clear that he saw the by-elections as binding.
	In the same debate, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said that,
	"if, as we fear, the effect of the amendment is simply to give further entrenchment to the Conservative peerage, then we see little reason to be sympathetic to it".—[Official Report, 30/3/99; col. 417.]
	That underlines one of the main planks of the noble Lord's Bill: he does not like the elections, whether or not they are binding, which I believe they clearly are. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway is absolutely right. However, my amendment would not challenge the composition of the House; it is the Bill that challenges the binding agreement, reaffirmed by the Minister today, that there would be no alteration to elections of hereditaries until stage 2 came about.

Lord Higgins: It is important that we get this clear. The noble Earl quoted from the speech of the then Viscount Cranborne. Can he say what the reply of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, was to that specific point?

The Earl of Caithness: I cannot, because I have not done that amount of research; I just happened to have the note beside me when the noble Lord, Lord Steel, raised that point. It has certainly always been my clear understanding of those debates in 1999 that the elections for the hereditary Peers were designed to keep 92 hereditary Peers, for better or for worse and whether one liked it or not, until there was a stage 2.

Lord Gordon of Strathblane: Would it not be rather bizarre, considering that this House has on several occasions, by majorities usually of three to one, pronounced itself in favour of an all-appointed House, if we did not regard an all-appointed House as a legitimate stage 2? Surely the problem is that some people think that stage 2 must be the last stage of reform, whereas anyone with any sense knows that every human institution is in perpetual need of reform. Stage 2 need not preclude a stage 3 or a stage 4.

The Earl of Caithness: Until the Government say that this is stage 2, I am working on the basis, with a White Paper coming up, that a further stage is coming along which will be stage 2. I agree with the noble Lord: I do not see that being the end of the story. I am sure that, in due course, there will be further Bills reforming the second Chamber. As I said at the beginning, I hope that it ends up a totally elected one.
	This Bill is breaking that fundamental principle. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, that however carefully this Bill is drafted and whatever the dignity and respect in which this House is held, it would be held in considerably less respect if it broke, by a Private Member's Bill, one of the binding agreements of the Government and the Opposition of 1999. That is why the 1999 Bill succeeded in the way that it did and was allowed to go through the House. If a lot of us had not believed that the election of hereditaries was part of the binding agreement, our debates and reaction to the 1999 Bill would have been very different.

Lord Howarth of Newport: Surely by any reasonable definition the reforms that would be enacted by this Bill, if it became an Act of Parliament, represent a substantial instalment of reform and could only be regarded as stage 2?

The Earl of Caithness: If the Government decide that it is stage 2—and they are the same Government who made the binding commitment—that is a different story. That will be debatable when that comes along. We will have to agree that. My memory from the 1999 discussions is that there was going to be a major stage in situ. I see the noble Lords, Lord Desai and Lord Richard, nodding because we can all recall those long hours spent into the night.
	On his first intervention, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, quoted as support for his Bill a couple of paragraphs from the summary of Propriety and Peerages. I will also quote a paragraph from that summary so that I am consistent with him. Last year, the report argued that,
	"the link between the honours system and the award of seats in the legislature—already significantly weakened—should be broken for good. Honours and titles should be for past service; a seat in Parliament for potential future service".
	That is exactly the basis behind Amendment No. 72, which is grouped with Amendment No. 1. I hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, would welcome this amendment. After all, he set the precedent by dropping his title when he was Presiding Officer in the Scottish Parliament and then came back here, while Presiding Officer, and took his title back.
	In support of my amendment, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde has said that we must not forget that there are a lot of Peers outside this Chamber who are not Members of this House. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, in the wonderful way that he does, has said that this is a wonderful English compromise. I like the idea of an English compromise proposed by a Scot against a Scot who does not like it, but, besides that, let us call it a British compromise. It does not solve the problem but makes it less urgent. That is another reason for me putting down the amendment against some points in this Bill.
	I fear that this Bill will delay stage 2. It might be a useful hook for the Government to use to say that, actually, there has now been a little reform of the House of Lords, that the hereditary Peers are going to wither, that there are no more elections, and that we do not need to do anything very much in a hurry. That worries me. It is a fundamental flaw of this Bill.
	From my own experience, when I was a Minister sitting where the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is now, and having suffered yet another defeat at the hands of your Lordships—

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Not as many as we do.

The Earl of Caithness: That is true, not as many, but things have changed. However, we did suffer defeats and I had to go back and see my fellow Ministers—representing constituents in another place. I got a severe earful the following morning as to why the House of Lords was behaving so badly.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: That has not changed.

The Earl of Caithness: I am glad that it has not changed. It just shows that Ministers in another place have no idea of the relevance of this House or how it works. Those Ministers gave me such a hard time; it was their Bill that we, the unelected House, were destroying, their Bill that we were amending—their Bill. Now an awful lot of those Ministers with whom I served and for whom I have huge respect are sitting in this House supporting this Bill. We should not stand back and say, "Now that we are here we are good enough". This Bill is to perpetuate the House. We have today the House of Lords trying to perpetuate itself and next week we have the House of Commons trying to increase its salaries, and neither of these two days in Parliament is any good for the political process.
	There is a lot more that I would like to say but it would be wrong for me to say it now. I repeat that I am extremely grateful to all your Lordships. I shall consider what has been said. I like what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, suggests. However, I shall just say to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that I have had to alter a lot of my amendments and not table some of the amendments that I wanted, but I shall speak to the amendments tabled in my name, as they are relevant and it is important that they are discussed. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hayman: Perhaps I could make it clear, as the Front Benches agree that it would be helpful, that Amendment No. 2 was an amendment to Amendment No. 1. Leave to withdraw was sought but was not unanimous. Therefore, the amendment was negatived.

Baroness Whitaker: moved Amendment No. 3:
	Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
	"PART A1Second chamber of Parliament
	Committee to determine name of second chamber
	(1) There shall be an independent committee which shall prepare a report setting out at least three options for the naming of the second chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and its members.
	(2) The committee shall be chaired by the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords.
	(3) The remaining members of the committee shall be appointed by the Lord Speaker who shall ensure the representation of—
	(a) Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Crossbench members of the House of Lords; and(b) independent experts who are not members of either the House nor of any political party.
	(4) The committee shall report within six months of the coming into force of this Part.
	(5) The report shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament."

Baroness Whitaker: Some of the ground in my amendment has already been covered, so I hope to be brief. Following the interesting debate that we have just had and consistent with the points made by my noble friend Lord Richard, my amendment is not intended in any way to pre-empt the White Paper but to encourage a debate on an important aspect of reform—a debate which I hope will continue during the life of the White Paper. Nor is my amendment intended to undermine the aristocracy or do away with the time-honoured titles of the nobility; it is aimed simply at severing their link with the legislature, as the noble Earl said, in name as well as in function. It would also apply in the case of a wholly or partly elected Chamber.
	The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Dubs might achieve a similar aim. However, insofar as it contains the name "Lords", the same confusion is perpetrated, which I should like to avoid. Some may say that once all vestiges of the hereditary principle in membership of your Lordships' House have gone, my purpose would be achieved, as the British political genius would enable any arrangements, no matter how contrarily named, to be pragmatically and effectively operated. But our constitutional arrangements are a part of our culture. They are for all our citizens to understand and value, and are of particular importance in the current climate of disaffection with politics. They are taught in schools. There is widespread confusion about what the House of Lords is all about, neatly encapsulated in the typical cartoon of the ermine-clad, coroneted old buffer, which is of course completely inaccurate.
	I am for a much more transparent and intelligible name for the second Chamber. The amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, might fit the Bill. When the matter was canvassed during Harold Wilson's Government, the most popular name was "senate". As noble Lords have said, it is a common name for a second Chamber in francophone countries and in the USA. But a change of this nature happens only once in a very long while, and we should apply ourselves to seeing whether there is not a feasible British term. I propose that the Lord Speaker should set up a committee; then we can see what British constitutional genius can come up with. I beg to move.

Viscount Astor: The noble Baroness's amendment is certainly intriguing, because it suggests that the report should set out at least three options. We have heard about the obvious one, which is a senate. There are different senates in different countries around the world. The American Senate is a very powerful institution, while the Senate in Canada is less so. A senate can be powerful or not.

Lord Richard: The Senate in Canada is appointed, which is one reason why it is so weak.

Viscount Astor: That may, indeed, be the case, but I was referring to the fact that senates have differing powers. They can be appointed or elected. In different countries around the Commonwealth there are different ways of doing it.
	One concern is that the amendment suggests that there should be three options. If we are going to appoint a committee, it ought to come up with a recommendation, rather than a number of options. Part of the reason for that is to do with the composition of the committee. The noble Baroness includes no Members of another place automatically on her committee, as far as I can see, although there can be independent experts. At the same time, the committee will produce a report to be laid before both Houses of Parliament. Who will decide which House will vote on the right name? What happens if another place votes for a different name, out of the three, from your Lordships' House? It seems to be a recipe for constitutional muddle—even more so than some other parts of this Bill.
	While it may be a good idea—and I think it is—for us to discuss what this House could be called in the future, to do so by way of this amendment will produce a number of confusing options and no certainty or agreed way forward. According to the amendment, the committee will be appointed by the Lord Speaker, which is, I am sure, a good idea, but it seems not to take any notice or cognisance of what the Government or, indeed, what any White Paper might say. While the idea is intriguing, the amendment does not make any sense in the context of the Bill, and would need radical reform before it could be considered for inclusion.

Lord Howarth of Newport: I would like to make two brief observations on my noble friend's amendment. I remind the House that the founding fathers of the American constitution engineered the US Senate as a device to restrict the skittishness that they predicted would characterise the House of Representatives. That seems to sit a little oddly with the proposition, which we hear on all sides, that we must respect the primacy of the House of Commons.
	My other observation is that, while the model of a committee to determine the future name of a second Chamber may be, as proposed by my noble friend, appropriate when the time comes—and I do not think that the time has yet come—it does not need to be established by statute. It can simply be done by any of the normal devices for setting up a committee.

Lord Trefgarne: I have some other concerns about the amendment. It is suggested that the Lord Speaker should chair the committee. I confess that I was not in favour of appointing a Lord Speaker to your Lordships' House, but the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has filled the position with considerable dignity and skill since she was appointed. However, if she were to take over the chairmanship of this committee, she might run the risk of getting into quite serious controversial difficulty, which would detract from the important independence attached to her present position. Therefore, to appoint the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords as the chairman of this committee, as is proposed in subsection (2) of the amendment, would be a mistake.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: I would like to support my noble friend, but I, too, have my doubts too about the wisdom of this course. In 2002, I was on the Joint Committee on the future of the House of Lords that produced seven options. We had seven "No" results in the other place. The question that came to my mind immediately was what we do if we produce three options and at least one of the Houses decides that it does not want any of them.

Lord Elton: I have two points on which I should like clarification. First, if this was enacted as printed, presumably that Chamber would come into existence before a name for it was chosen. How would you refer to it in the interim? Secondly, the position regarding Members of the other place is rather more stringent than my noble friend has suggested. The only way into this committee would be through subsection (3), which is divided into two paragraphs. Under paragraph (a) all have to be Members of this House and under (b) none of them can be a Member of either House. I wonder whether the exclusion of Members of the other place is deliberate or accidental. If it is deliberate, I wonder why it was done.

Earl Ferrers: The amendment says that the committee should consist of,
	"Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Crossbench members",
	but there are no right reverend Prelates. Is that not an omission? They form a very distinct and distinctive part of the House.

Lord Desai: Many people have made interesting suggestions about the amendment of my noble friend. My feeling is there are, after all, not that many names that one will be able to put forward. The Witenagemot is the only one I can see which will be a winner if we do not have a senate. But we are missing a great chance. This should not be done just by Members of the House of Lords or just by Members of the House of Commons. We should consult the people. We should bring in outside opinion and consult the nation to see what they would like us to be called. Why should we decide? At least a lot of people would find out what we do and how we should do it.

Lord Strathclyde: The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, is less prescriptive in this amendment than my noble friend Lord Caithness was in his. That makes me wonder exactly what sort of House the noble Baroness would like to see. As is well known, I favour a stronger House, which is why I rather like the idea of a senate. At least, I did until the noble Lord, Lord Richard, reminded us that the Senate of Canada is an appointed House. But I like to think that the name "senate" is authoritative, which is one of the reasons why I favour it.
	The noble Baroness is right that we have to consider a new name as this will no longer be a House of all Lords, as I explained in the earlier debate. But I cannot follow her, and neither have other noble Lords, in suggesting that the right place to decide on a future name is on some committee. I should like to see us being more confident than that. Parliament already gives far too much responsibility to other bodies and takes on far too little for itself. If there is to be a new name, surely, we should not be afraid to debate it, to decide on our own name and to include that in legislation. The difficulty of identifying a committee to do this foreshadows some of the debates that we will have later when we discuss the appointment of the nine immensely powerful figures that the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, wants to appoint to decide who will make up half our Parliament.
	The noble Baroness also says in her amendment that we need experts to decide on a name. I was hoping that she might tell us who those experts might be. Will they be lexicographers, experts in all languages? We could be the Athenian boule or the Indian Rajya Sabha or even our own medieval Great Council. In fact, the Great Council is not such a bad name. How many undiscovered terms are there in the dictionary for a Chamber of Parliament? Those experts could be historians or constitutionalists. Even people such as Professor Vernon Bogdanor or Dr Meg Russell could decide for us. No doubt being eminent historians, they would tell us of the difficulties they had in the 1650s when the House of Lords had been abolished and his Highness Lord Protector Cromwell decided that the Commons needed a balancing Upper House to stop it running amok. A written constitution could not help as much against abuse of the primacy of the Commons in those days. They had to turn to a reborn House of Lords.
	They did not decide a name in 1657 before the House was created and summoned. Then the Commons spent weeks debating whether to recognise it and what it should be called. With masterly originality the House of Commons eventually concluded that it should simply be called the other House. I hope that no one here would advocate a repetition. Under Protector Richard Cromwell it became the Upper House, but that too lacks a little in style.
	In other words, I am not sure what these proposed experts could bring to the table that we could not do perfectly well for ourselves. Some terms are too foreign for some; for the rest, the choices are limited. Either we stay where we are with the House of Lords or, if we reform the House and exclude classes of Lords, I do not see why we should look much further than a senate, although I know that even to say that would be controversial in this House.

Viscount Astor: My noble friend supports a senate. Would I be Senator Lord Astor, or would I be Lord Astor, a member of the Senate?

Lord Strathclyde: I believe that my noble friend would be Senator Viscount Astor; there is nothing wrong with that. He would have to be elected, though, under my scheme.

Viscount Astor: That could cause some difficulty.

Lord Strathclyde: Very possibly; it would be difficult for all of us.
	I agree with my noble friend Lord Ferrers about the exclusion of the Lords Spiritual from membership of the committee. Perhaps the noble Baroness had a specific reason for excluding them, but I think that we should always hear from them. In my experience, theologians are without parallel in finding words to bridge gaps.
	On the question of who should chair the committee, I, too, am convinced that the Lord Speaker should not be the person to choose the committee. I would be prepared to agree that she could chair it, but to give the chairman power to appoint his or her committee is not good practice. How large should this committee be and who would decide on behalf of each party group who should be the members? The noble Baroness suggests that the Lord Speaker should decide, but the Lord Speaker is not intimate in her knowledge of the Conservative or Liberal Democrat groups, or even the Cross Bench groups in this House. A Conservative or Liberal Speaker would have exactly the same difficulty with other groups in the House. Should the names come from leaders, chairmen or convenors of the groups, having consulted with their members as appropriate? In short, the amendment seems to set up an elaborate machinery involving people from outside Parliament over whom your Lordships' House will have no control either as a House or through party groups to do relatively little. If we need a new name, the field of choice is relatively small.
	Surely when the time comes we should grasp the nettle, debate it and decide it ourselves. I hope that the noble Baroness, when she sums up, will withdraw her amendment; and, if she wishes to proceed, she should consider further how it might work, taking into account the points raised in this short debate. I am happy to join her and others in coming to a finer conclusion as to how this could be moved forward.

Lord Elton: Before my noble friend sits down, will he consider the use of the Committee of Selection to select this committee? We have that machinery already.

Lord Strathclyde: It is an eminently good idea to use the Committee of Selection, which already exists in this House. We should not go around reinventing the wheel when the machinery is already here.

Baroness Thornton: I would like to say a few words in support of my noble friend's amendment. The thrust of it is right because, as other noble Lords have said, we need to decide ourselves; we have been discussing on the Back Benches what we might be called, and other noble Lords have also done so. There is a range of names, other than senate, that we could consider. It is important that the discussion starts in this House and that the suggestions for our new name should come from this House. The thrust of this argument is the right way to go.

Lord Tyler: Earlier the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said that she found herself in the unusual and uncomfortable position of agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I find myself agreeing with him as well. I do not believe I have ever said that before either. I entirely understand the thinking behind the amendment, but it needs some more thinking. I have joined your Lordships' House relatively recently, but people at the other end of this building will think that this is an important issue in which they should be involved. I would be speaking on behalf of former colleagues in saying that although it may well be that your Lordships' House should take the initiative and should narrow down the suggestions, nevertheless, the whole of Parliament should discuss it.
	I have been very taken by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Desai. It may be that one of the television channels would like to open up the issue in the way in which they are so adept. They might even make some money to help towards the costs of running this place. As long as the matter was upfront, and they explained precisely the cost of all the calls, I am sure that your Lordships' House would receive such funding with enthusiasm.
	It is important to narrow down as widely as possible—if that is not too complicated a phrase—the number of options. I am very sensitive and sympathetic to the suggestion that in this country we should have a senate. I think that the examples in other parts of the world are not to be taken as gospel in this matter. We certainly do not have to follow anyone because, in any case, there are so many different versions. A senate gives the impression, which is important, that we are an integral part of the decision-making in Parliament. We will not be just a debating chamber at the other end of the building that occasionally becomes difficult and stroppy and has a different view. We will be an integral part of the legislature of this country. The word "senate" would give the Chamber that status. I say with all humility, as a recently joined Member, that there will be Members of the other place who will think that they should be consulted on this matter too.

Lord Dearing: Perhaps I can intervene with one sentence: the more we seek to achieve, the less we shall achieve.

The Earl of Caithness: I support the thrust of the noble Baroness's amendment. I suggest to her that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is an ideal person to sit on the committee. He made a very interesting speech which made me think how much we still miss the late Earl Russell. He would have been an excellent person to have on the committee. Indeed, I think his comments on this Bill would have been quite interesting too and perhaps different from those of the rest of his party in many ways.
	What the noble Baroness sets out, I think, is right. Thought needs to be given to this. I came forward with the idea of a senate but, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, rightly reminds us, of course the Senate in Canada is appointed. Having been to Canada and America, it is interesting to see the difference with which the Senates are regarded in both countries as a result of that, including the powers given to a second chamber.
	On the powers, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, "Do not for one moment believe that when we have a 100 per cent elected Chamber that there will be primacy of the House of Commons". Can you imagine the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in his former incarnation as the MP for Stratford-upon-Avon, going to his constituents in Stratford and then to Newport, saying, "Please elect me, there is actually nothing I can do for you; you might want me to oppose the Government but I'm not going to because I am not allowed to". No one will get any votes on that basis. The only way you will get votes is to canvass and say, "The reason I want to be elected is because I want to stand up to those people in the other place".

Lord Howarth of Newport: How right the noble Earl is. I hope that his remarks are extensively read in the House of Commons.

The Earl of Caithness: The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said to the Minister that he would not believe anything that the Minister said, even if he did not say it. I am certain that the noble Earl will agree with me that the House of Commons will not want for one moment to think that its primacy could be challenged. However, it will have to be, and it is right that it should be.
	I like the idea of some form of committee but fear that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right. There is no way in which the other place will not put its sticky mitts on to this in some shape or form. It is more than likely that they will want to dictate to us what our name should be. That is why I think the idea of us starting at this end of the corridor is a very good one, so that we have the initiative. I am grateful to the noble Baroness.

Lord Trefgarne: The real problem with the noble Baroness's amendment—this is a serious and not frivolous criticism—is that it takes from Parliament a decision on the name of what will become the second Chamber. She says in her amendment that the report should be laid before both Houses of Parliament but not approved by them, by which she means the decision should be made by the committee which she proposes. Parliament will have great difficulty with that concept. This place will have difficulty with that concept and so would the other place. Other serious detailed difficulties have been referred to, such as exactly what the independent experts would be expert in and why there are no representatives from the other place. There are a lot of difficulties with the noble Baroness's amendment and I think it would be better if she did not press it.

Lord Dubs: Perhaps I may contribute briefly. I have found this debate most interesting; there has been not a moment of boredom in it, and one cannot always say that. We are not here to entertain ourselves but it has been a fascinating afternoon. I have a later amendment, and I fought shy of incorporating the concept of senate into it because I was not sure that there would be enough agreement. The combination of my noble friend's amendment and the noble Lord's Bill has brought out a broad measure of support for the word "senate".
	It would be dangerous to say that we are all agreed on the proposal because many would say that we are not. However, one thing that has come out of the debate so far is that the terms "senate" and "senator" are strongly in contention. Having said that, I understand what my noble friend is seeking to do in her amendment. I do not agree with the thrust of it, but she has probably achieved her aim in airing the issue. I suggest that if we are going to have any change to the name of ourselves as individuals or to the name of the House, then senate would be the odds-on favourite, provided that the change of name occurs when there is a change in the composition of the House. If we do it without changing the structure of the House—and this is not the amendment on which to debate that—it will be silly. When we come to changing the way in which the House moves to stage 2 or stage 3, I think the title "senate" will be a good one.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: This has been an interesting debate and my noble friend has done a great service to the House. This is not the first time that your Lordships have debated the title of this House. I recall an amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, in 1999 on the question of the name of the reformed House. He made a number of suggestions and I think his amendment proposed that it should be the House of Peers and Peeresses. That was anticipated by Gilbert and Sullivan many years before in the alternative title to "Iolanthe": "The Peer and the Peri". The definition of "peri" is those who are descended from fallen angels who have been denied paradise until they have done penance. We are indeed doing penance today.

Earl Ferrers: I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord but I am deeply flattered that he should remember what I said long after I had forgotten what said. I am sure he will agree that anything I have said has always been correct.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The noble Earl will recall that I was the government Whip on the Bill and that I was allowed to deal with only one amendment, which happened to be his. That is why I remember it but, alas, the Government were unable to accept it.
	The name of the reformed Chamber is a very important matter. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that we want a good debate on this and that Parliament should decide, although it would be quite proper for a committee of this House, the other House or both Houses jointly to consider these matters and give advice to Parliament as a whole. Indeed, that is a very useful suggestion.
	I urge one point of caution. There seems to be an emerging consensus that senate may be the appropriate term, and I understand that. It is a very grand—indeed, comforting—title, but it is very important that the name reflects the status and responsibilities of a reformed Chamber. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I believe that it is perfectly possible to have an elected second Chamber—an assertive Chamber, as undoubtedly it will be—which still respects the primacy of the Commons. Personally, I would hesitate to use the word senate in that context but, in the end, happily it will be Parliament that decides.

Lord Strathclyde: I expected a bucketload of cold water to be showered on the name senate, but can the noble Lord tell us—he must have given this a great deal of thought—what name he would like a reformed House to be given? He has a choice of perhaps three and, if he likes, he can phone a friend or even ask the opinion of the House.

Viscount Astor: While the Minister is thinking of his answers, perhaps I could again draw his attention to the Public Administration Select Committee report. Paragraph 141 says:
	"One of the simplest ways to reduce the potential market value of peerages would be to separate the honour and the title from the seat in the legislature. The Government has already indicated it supports this".
	Does the noble Lord think that that is correct?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The principle is supported by the Government, as they have said, but we would prefer to see it within the overall reform proposals that we would bring forward through a White Paper. As I understand it, the Select Committee argues that the matter could be dealt with in an interim Bill. I do not think that I should comment any further than that because the Government owe it to Parliament as a whole to give careful consideration to the recommendations, and we shall do so in due course.
	I have to say to the noble Earl, Lord Strathclyde—

A noble Lord: He is not an Earl.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: He jolly well ought to be and perhaps one day he will be. Alas, I confess that I have not given as much time as perhaps I should have done to thinking about the title of a reformed second Chamber. I shall go away and give it earnest consideration. I do not seek to pour cold water on the word senate; I simply ask the House to exercise some caution and to choose a title that reflects the responsibilities that the revising Chamber will have in the future.
	I wish to pose a question to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Does the historical tour de force that he treated us to earlier have any implications for the Commons? In a sense, I suppose that it could be argued that the House of Commons defined itself as a House of Commons as against the House of Lords. That is why I say to my noble friend that, whether she pushes this matter at this or a later stage, the representation of Members of the House of Commons will be very important.

Lord Norton of Louth: I rise to speak briefly on behalf of the sponsors of the Bill. I recall that when my noble friend Lord Waldegrave was sitting in the Commons and was replying to Questions at Question Time, far more rapid progress was made than expected. They got to about Question 21 but he rose to his feet and called attention to the fact that the notes in his folder stopped at Question 20. I suspect that I shall not have that problem this afternoon.
	I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that the value of this debate is that the noble Baroness has given the topic an airing. That is quite justifiable. We are quite sensitive and amenable to the point underlying her amendment. The problem that we would have is twofold—I shall be brief because those points have already been drawn out in debate. One is about composition. The other is about process; whether it is appropriate to be embodied in legislation. The point about composition has already been well rehearsed. Speaking for myself, I have no problem with experts being drawn on for such a purpose, but I take the point about the membership of this House being exclusive for parliamentarians.
	There is a much broader issue, to which we shall return in later amendments, not least relating to the composition of the Appointments Commission. I know that some Members would like to confine that to Members of this House. That is entirely inappropriate. We should not be too precious about the method used for membership of this House. Others should be involved in that process. We should not try to keep it within ourselves. I accept that, if we are going to discuss the name, it is quite appropriate that others should be involved.
	However, as has been identified, the danger is in doing it too prescriptively through the form of an amendment to the Bill. It is most unusual for committees of this sort to be set up by statute; it is normally done by another method. That allows flexibility to have discussions to meet the very points that have been raised. So I revert to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs: it has been very valuable rehearsing the case. I am quite sympathetic to the noble Baroness's point. There is a case for looking at the name. I am one of those who would be wary about calling it a senate, so I think that there is a case for having considered reflection on that, not rushing into it, which is why I was opposed to the earlier amendments, but I am sympathetic to the core of the point made by the noble Baroness.

Baroness Whitaker: I intended to stimulate debate and I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have entertained and enlightened us by joining in the debate. I agree with everything that my noble friend Lord Hunt said in response. I should just like to clarify that the amendment was not intended to pre-empt the White Paper. Therefore, the composition of this House would have been settled before we debated the name.
	I had originally intended that we should choose our name, but I take very well the points made by several noble Lords that another place has a right and expectation to be involved with choosing the title. When I take my amendment back, I shall take that into account. Consulting the people is also an extremely interesting idea. Noble Lords will have grasped from that that I intend to read extremely carefully everything in Hansard. I do not think that I would be inclined, however, to include the right reverend Prelates. It seems to me that they do not have a place in a modern second Chamber in that way.
	Therefore, apart from willingly taking up the offer of help from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—

Lord Elton: Surely one cannot let that pass uncommented on. Many of us think that the right reverend Prelates add a dimension to our debates without which they would be vastly impoverished. It is wrong to ignore that aspect when deciding how to compose the committee.

Baroness Whitaker: I could not agree more with the noble Lord about the valuable contribution made by individual Members on the Bench of Prelates. However, it seems to me not appropriate—although this is an initial point in the debate—that they should take part in choosing the name. That is what I meant.

Earl Ferrers: The noble Baroness must agree that she is being highly discriminatory, because this place is the House of Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual. They ought to be just as well represented as anyone else.

Baroness Whitaker: I am putting a point of view at the beginning of a debate, which I think is worth considering. However, it is not the end of the debate and I hope that the noble Earl will accept it in that spirit. I am flattered by the offer of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to help me draft an amendment. It may well come to that. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.
	House adjourned at 7 pm